


Grey Fox

by Chairtastic



Series: Skooma Cat stories [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls
Genre: Airships, College of Whispers, Family Issues, Fantasy, Heavy LGBT themes, Humor, M/M, Magic, Magic thieves, Reincarnation Romance, Sheogorath is a terrible father, Skullduggery, Sky Pirates, Thieves Guild, Tomb Robbing, Trans Male Character, thieves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26716921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chairtastic/pseuds/Chairtastic
Summary: The Tenth Era is a time of change and permanence. Rogues are a-dashing, buckles are a-swashing, and tombs are being a-raided.  What a time to be alive.  What a time to be a fox.
Relationships: Mara/Talos, Meridia/Sheogorath/Kyne, OC/OC, Vivec/Clavicus Vile
Series: Skooma Cat stories [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1944352
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	1. Out of the Dark

This is a sequel to my previous TES: V, Skyrim fic -- Skooma Cat. Skooma Cat was envisioned as forcing Skyrim to lighten up and be merry, and gay. I hope, with this fic, to continue that theme. Other themes to consider, so that no one is blindsided this time, is the fact that there will be incomplete/implied storytelling but I will compile facts and important bits into an information post every ten chapters. I have two more chapters pre-written and will post them as the new one is finished or as set by a schedule. This story takes place in the Tenth Era, after many changes have taken place, and about five thousand years have passed from the times of Skyrim. Furthermore this is a fundamentally LGBT story. If you don't like that, you have been informed and can make your decisions. Have a pleasant evening.

**Grey Fox**

Summary: The Tenth Era is a time of change and permanence. Rogues are a-dashing, buckles are a-swashing, and tombs are being a-raided. What a time to be alive. What a time to be a fox.

**Chapter One: Out of the Dark**

There were four kinds of Lilmothiit foxes in Oblivion, of varying levels of popularity. Suangen’s foxes were russet red, the lord of debauchery dressed them in silks and tulle for the entertainment of his guests. Quite popular. Seth’s foxes were marbled white and black -- never fond of the reverse order of colors -- creative and ever so slightly unhinged. Popular with artisans. Vvarden Vey’s foxes were sandy yellow with large ears, and they had a youthful energy about them that bordered on the immature. The life of the party, them.

And lastly, Riana’s foxes were grey, clever, and not spoken of. Cinereous on their sides and backs, white on their bellies, orange at the extremities, tails dipped in black. Like Riana, they were content to stay as they always had. They offered no worship to Riana -- goddess of the night and the underground -- for she asked for none. She wanted none. Faith meant less to her than to keep the terms and conditions of their contracts.

One such condition was that every generation was presented to Lady Riana for inspection when they had reached adulthood. She would evaluate their skills, their bearing, and give them a task to earn their keep. Every Lilmothiit family in Shade Perilous spent the day getting their children gussied up and looking their absolute best.

Edllarno Villaverde needed less help than most -- natural good looks went a long way. Still, he spent most of the morning combing his fur and hair repeatedly while his younger sisters and mamá fussed about his charro suit.

The house of Villaverde was alive with preparations for the day. His extended family had come to perform elaborate rituals to entice good luck for a good job, while his older cousins tried to scare him with the horror stories of tasks which Riana had given to proud and haughty Lilmothiit like Edllarno in the past.

And then tía Milliel had to go and make things awkward. While Edllarno was in his room, doing his eyeliner, he heard her talk to his mamá in the hallway.

“You know, Riana isn’t going to be fooled by this,” the rancid old tía told his mamá. She had to know Edllarno could hear -- Lilmothiit ears were almost the size of their heads. “You’re going to bring shame on this family if you leave it like this.”

“My son is as Riana made him,” he heard his mamá snarl back. “And you will not say otherwise if you wish to remain in my house.”

“This is my _brother’s_ house, you -- “

“Tiburón is gone, harpy. Unless you want to explain to Riana why Edllarno doesn’t have your blessing without a good reason, you will be silent on the issue.” There was the demonstrative clack of his mamá’s boots on the stone as she walked toward Edllarno’s door.

She knocked three times, gently, and Edllarno let her in. She glanced down at his chest, the layers of bandages there, and sighed. “I’m sorry we couldn’t find something better than that, mijo,” she muttered and closed the door behind her. As the heavy iron and wood door closed, Edllarno caught a glimpse of tía Milliel as she passed by. Her nose up and away from him.

Edllarno was shorter than his mamá and tía by a few inches -- despite being a man he still had some growing left to do. His mamá was dressed for a festival, in a frilled gown of dark green and black decorated with embroidered crows. Next year, his younger sister would get a gown just like that for her presentation to Riana.

“It’s okay, mamá,” he consoled her and returned to his cushioned seat in front of a blackened bone decorated vanity cabinet. His room featured a lot of blacks and greens -- the Villaverde colors. While his mamá watched, he doused a puff-ball in soot and began to dab at his chin and nose. Soon the two black marks naturally on either side of his muzzle were made into a ring. “At least she isn’t going to withhold her blessing.”

“Don’t tempt her spite.” The older Lilmothiit walked up behind Edllarno, and rested her hands on his shoulders. He took much after her in the looks department, the same dark hair with the unnatural sheen. Though hers had started to grey from age and seven children. Gently, mamá’s hands squeezed. “Are you sure?”

He didn’t need to know what she was asking about. He swallowed, and forced a facade of confidence onto his face. “If I didn’t do this when I met Riana, I don’t think I’d ever have the courage in my life.”

Mamá couldn’t be too emotional -- her makeup would be ruined, which would drive Edllarno to ruin his as well. “Shadows hide you, mijo.” She helped him by pulling his hair back and tying it with a green ribbon.

“They always do.”

\--

Shade Perilous was an entirely ‘indoor’ realm of Oblivion. There were walls, ceilings, floors, rooms and the halls which connected them. There were some cavernously large rooms where Riana’s illusionists created mimicries of plants and animals for her enjoyment, but no true outdoors locations. Even in the room meant to mimic the night sky of the mortal world Tamriel, Edllarno had been able to see the seams between the roof tiles. It was appropriate for Riana, goddess of night and the underground. The name was accurate, it was perilous. There was nowhere in the Shade that was truly safe, for things could come and go in the shadows. Monsters, daedra, and worse than daedra -- bad luck. In a blink, the dark could swallow a person as if they’d never been.

In the gloom of the Shade’s halls, lit only by lamps which burned darkling mana to guide the way, horse-drawn carriages drove Lilmothiit young adults to the examination palace. Riana had many palaces, she was that kind of daedra. Edllarno was one of six young Lilmothiit in the carriage, and there were mixed experiences all around.

A baker’s son seemed dead-eyed, his hair and clothes done up as if he were a glorified doll. His charro suit had his parent’s logo on the back and thighs -- a blatant advertising pitch. The headmistress’ daughter had a look of utmost confidence to anyone who failed to notice how tightly her hands gripped her ruffled skirt.

Riana would not look favorably on weakness, so the stories said. So there was a stigma about being seen as weak. Edllarno had to wonder how many people in his carriage, or the other carriages had someone like his mamá to stand up for them. How many only had people like tía Milliel in their lives?

They passed by a ruined carriage on the way to the palace. Sometimes, a carriage would be attacked by a daedroth or several clannfear. Whoever had been in that carriage was long dead -- the darkling mana lights had burned out, and no skeletons remained. It was worth repeating that the Shade Perilous _wasn’t safe_ , especially the long passages between Lilmothiit cavern towns and daedra structures. It was for that reason that all Lilmothiit were trained with some magic, and a frequent blessing gift was a knife.

No daedroth or clannfear attacked Edllarno’s carriage, but there were noises behind them in the passage as they approached Riana’s palace. Unlucky souls. The darkness had swallowed them.

Riana’s palace drew near. At first it had the appearance of a crumbling ruin -- shattered towers, fountains that had no water flow, lamps that had run out of fuel. If any cared to look closely, as Edllarno did, they would see something quite different. The fountains weren’t broken, they were full -- blue and purple fish swam among their waters. The towers were shattered, but nests of Riana’s blackbirds were clearly visible -- one even had a tree growing through its roof. And the lamps that seemingly had no fuel were covered with lichen that emitted a faint glow -- fuel would be redundant.

The carriage drove up to a roundabout centered on a pavilion of Riana in her human aspect -- Nocturnal. Other carriages were there as well, the fortunate ones at least, and began to unload their occupants.

Bare-chested daedra women, shrikes, went to the carriages and opened the doors. “Ladies first,” the shrike for Edllarno’s carriage cooed. The ladies gracefully exited the carriage, then one of the men rose up to leave. He was pulled back to his seat by his tail by the baker’s son who turned to look at Edllarno with his dead eyes.

Edllarno smiled and pulled the blessing dagger his tío had given him out of its holster so the light caught on the blade. Papá had always said Edllarno’s willingness to involve violence would cause problems, but he found it a useful deterrent. He watched the dead-eyed baker’s son glance down at the knife, then released the other man’s tail. The rest disembarked without issue.

In the palace of Riana, the shrikes led them to an antechamber where they instructed the young fox-folk to mingle and wait for their name to be called. All that was left to do was wait.

\--

Edllarno, given his last name was in the V group, was probably going to be one of the last to be called in. So he socialized.

“...bizarre isn’t, it,” Edllarno asked a shoemaker’s daughter and a daedroth hunter’s twin girls. “Nirn just… has half the day dedicated to a light so bright all that remains of the dark are shadows.”

“And they call it ‘day’, too. That’s so confusing!” The shoemaker’s daughter was animated and calm in a way few at the ceremony were. Dressed in a simple tan charra skirt suit, her parents likely couldn’t afford anything more elaborate. Yet she acted as if she had no shame, no fear of Riana’s judgment. “I don’t know how they keep secrets with all that light. You can’t hide things in the dark if there is no dark.”

“And even the night is bright compared to here,” one of the daedroth hunter’s twins said. “They have two moons in the sky which give off light of their own, and countless little holes to Aetherius for starlight.”

The other twin snorted. “The only truly dark places there are the caves. But some there have glowing mushrooms.”

Edllarno arched his brow to her. “But… we have glowing mushrooms here, too.”

“Well yes, if you want to get technical. But just think about it. Nowhere at all that’s completely dark.”

It was a strange thing to think about, hence their discussion. “Apparently the source of the day is called ‘the sun’, Magnus. And it’s so bright that if you look directly at it you’re blinded for life.”

“How awful,” the shoemaker’s daughter said. “And people can just… live like that?”

“I’m told they have these things called clouds which blot out the sun sometimes.”

The shoemaker’s daughter and the twins struggled to comprehend the idea. “What are these ‘clouds’ exactly?”

Edllarno shrugged. “Mí abuela uses the word when there’s flour or dust in the air -- maybe they’re really big collections of dust in the sky?”

“But dust couldn’t block out something as bright as you’re saying the sun is -- oh!” Her ears perked up and she broke out in a grin, “they’re calling me up! Gotta go!”

Edllarno and the daedroth hunter’s twins wished her luck and waved as she trotted off to meet Riana.

When a Lilmothiit was called to meet Riana, there was a bit of a ceremony where the person called upon would show Riana’s messenger that they had their family’s blessings. The blessing was an important part of the daedra’s decision making, it was their family members vouching for the young one’s capabilities. Blessings usually took the form of flower petals bewitched to emit light, or items that could help them in a variety of situations. Lockpicks were a common blessing.

One by one, the crowd dwindled until it was time for Edllarno to be called up. A shrike with a clipboard called his name, and he approached. The formalities were observed, blessings from his family -- even tía Milliel -- were presented, and the shrike opened the doors for him with a thought.

The hallways to meet with Riana were pitch black, the wrong paths had brightly burning torches to illuminate the way. Sometimes there were temptations in the light -- gold, gems, beautiful weapons, beautiful people absent their clothes -- but they were obvious temptations. The more subtle temptations were harder to ignore.

One path had a trace of papá’s cologne in the air. Another had a distant band which played his favorite song. And a third had what sounded like his voice echoing down to Edllarno. He knew, in his head, that they were just illusions meant to get him into the light where he would die horribly. But he would be a liar if he said he wished they weren’t.

At last he came to the door. It blended into the wall -- he only knew there was a door there at all because he had been touching one wall with his hand to keep his place, and happened upon a hinge. How many had just kept walking and gotten lost in the dark? Was Riana that indifferent? Did she care if the darkness would swallow him?

Regardless, he’d found it. He felt around for the handle and opened the door.

Riana’s office was splendidly done, rich carpets of intermingling blues, blacks, and purples. Ebony bookshelves heavy with tomes, pointed windows decorated with stained glass corvids. And a desk, heavy with paperwork and a black-furred Lilmothiit woman in a hooded cloak, bent over and scribbling at a form. A framed photo rested on the desk next to her. Edllarno made sure to close the door as quietly as possible and approached with similar quietness. Silent as the grave was he.

The avatar of Riana snorted and twitched an ear. “Trying to sneak up on the god of thieves? How mortal.” Riana looked up and Edllarno saw dozens of points of light gather in twin spirals to form her eyes. “You didn’t even knock on the door -- I’d thought your mother would teach you manners.” Her voice was crisp, sharp, and ever so slightly haunting. None of the graceful rolls and tumbles in Lilmothiit speech.

“She was more occupied teaching me how to do my work well, señora,” Edllarno replied and bowed his head. “How may I be of service?”

Riana looked him over, then squinted as she noted something she didn’t like. “Hmm. That’s an error that needs fixing, but you’re on the path to correcting it already. A negligible concern.” She shifted her focus to a notebook which she manifested out of a cloud of darkness. “Hmm. You have artistic skill, good -- a rare trait here. Your pickpocketing could see improvement, I’ll make sure of that. Skilled with magic, excellent, excellent. And a much better control of your temper than last time.”

Edllarno blinked, startled by her choice of words. Last time?

Riana looked up at him and rested her chin on her fist. “You don’t remember last time, do you? Not even brief flashes?” When he didn’t answer, she set down the notebook and turned the framed picture around so he could see it. “Do you recognize him?”

The pictograph was of a beastfolk, but not a Lilmothiit. A feline man, his fur pastel pink with stripes of green, blue ears, and heterochromia. Khajiit, the name for his species, came to Edllarno in a flash. But the pictured man had pronounced fangs. And he was dressed in a pale blue tunic which something told Edllarno was called ‘Ancient Nibenese wedding garb’. The stranger looked so _happy_.

A cocktail of emotions filled Edllarno’s head quickly, without his bidding. He was so proud of how much of the craftsmanship showed up on the pictograph. He was so happy to see someone he loved happy -- which came hand in hand with the instinctual feeling of love for someone he hadn’t met. And all of it was served in a glass of sorrow that he couldn’t place.

Edllarno realized he was crying when Riana turned the pictograph back. “So there’s something of you left in there. Good.” She had no emotion on her face as she picked her notebook up again. “I’d hate to have expended all this effort mimicking my nephew’s power to have it work _too_ well. You’re messing up your makeup, get that under control.”

Edllarno, unable to place why he was crying, did his best to stymie it while he dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief. His eyeliner was positively ruined.

“There’s a good man. Now, I’ve seen all I need to see.” Riana closed her notebook and vanished it with the same motion. “The job I have for you is simple. Dangerous, but simple.”

“Th-hank you, my lady. Any wo-ork from you is -- “

“Stop with the prepared speech.” Riana rolled her starry eyes. “You were always most effective when you used a lightning stake to make your point. My nephew was the better public speaker.”

‘Was?’ He wanted to ask, but the very thought filled Edllarno with deep dread and stopped his tongue.

She snapped her fingers and an eerie object appeared in her hand. A key with three sets of teeth on a golden shaft, a circular guard as if it were a sword, and a round knob at the end which glowed spectral green. “The Skeleton Key. My artifact. I want you to guard it from this day forward.”

The key which could unlock anything. Edllarno’s family would have generations of bragging rights for such a job! His glee steadily burned through whatever pain had caused the earlier waterworks.

“Now this job will require you to move, as the key has to stay in a particular place.” Before Edllarno had a chance to comment, she spoke again. “To Nirn, I mean. I’ll be sending you to Nirn.”

It was like the floor fell out from beneath him, a downward dive on a rollercoaster. He was stunned for a moment before he articulated a response. “What?”

“The Key used to be located in the Twilight Sepulcher, but there was an accident involving a moon sugar smuggling ring, a flame atronach, and a lack of safety standard compliance. Needless to say, the Sepulcher is now a smoking hole in the ground. And the Skeleton Key needs a new home.”

“O-oh. So you, uh, want me to find a new home for -- “

“I miss when you were better able to connect the dots.” Riana stood and walked through her desk like it wasn’t there until she was in front of Edllarno. She grabbed him by his shirt and shifted her grip on the Skeleton Key ominously. “Don’t blink.”

Riana’s command couldn’t be ignored. No matter how desperately Edllarno wished he could, after she took the Skeleton Key and shoved it directly into his right eyeball. Daedric fire marked the transition as the Key pushed into Edllarno’s eye and beyond, all while Edllarno screamed at the sudden turn and the raw _pain_ of it all. When it was done, Riana let him go and he fell to the floor immediately.

“The Key acts as my conduit when plugged into a pool of darkness,” Riana explained as she walked back through her desk to her seat. “That can be a literal pool, as was the case with the Ebonmere, or it can be any pool of darkness. Like, say, a pupil.” She sat down and steepled her fingers. “A bit rougher than I thought it’d be. Can you still see through that eye?”

Edllarno had covered his attacked eye with his hands and rolled around on the ground as a way to work through the pain. Even after it was done it still hurt! Hesitantly, he pulled his hands off his eye and forced it to open. At first things were fuzzy but they began to clear up relatively fast. “Um. It… seems okay?”

“Good, good. I would hate to have to explain that to my great-nephew and nieces.” She snapped her fingers again and an oval of light appeared next to her desk. It emitted pulses of light rapidly and exuded the faint smell of spices and salt water.

Edllarno didn’t reflect on why he knew what salt water was or smelled like.

“Well, there’s the portal.” She tilted her head. “I’ll inform your family. Get going.”

“Wha-- _now_? You want me to go to Nirn _now_?”

“Obviously. I need my Key back on Nirn as soon as possible. Now is the best possible time.” She narrowed her starry eyes at him. “Which you are delaying. Hop to it.” When, obviously, that did not happen, she frowned and considered. “Hmm. You’re probably concerned with your lack of knowledge regarding the state of things on Nirn.”

“That’s definitely _a_ reason I’m hesitating.”

“Well, let’s see….” She looked at the portal and shifted it a little. “Ah. The others are beginning the relocation efforts of _their_ Lilmothiit populations as well. I’ll put you down there, where you can get filled in by others.” She glanced at him. “You’ll probably get a straight answer from Suangen’s red foxes, but they’re _Suangen’s_ foxes. Expect them to act every single kind of inappropriate.”

“As opposed to what you’re doing?” Edllarno clamped his hands over his mouth the moment he’d said that. Horror stories about how Riana could torment people for merely disappointing her played through his head in a loop as he realized he’d backsassed her within minutes of being given a job.

“Ah, good, a bit of your old backsass.” She smiled enough to show an unnatural collection of spiked teeth -- each tooth was like a jagged trident. “If you’re worried about going into a situation with only the clothes on your back -- don’t. You did perfectly well last time.”

“What last time?” He finally addressed all those references to a previous dynamic they’d had which he didn’t recall in the slightest.

“Ah, you don’t have those memories back yet? Then this will be an excellent learning experience.” She flicked her wrist and instead of him going to the glowing oval -- a portal -- it sailed through the air to him.

And then he was gone. Consumed by the light.

\--

With maritime trade down so much on account of the holiday, and those new cargo airships, the harbor had been partitioned off into a section for ships, and another for public swimming. The South Docks, which spread all along the harborfront of Elmgate neighborhood, became a massive swimming zone. Not all of the docks were suitable, but sand was brought in to make a bit of an artificial beach for people to enjoy.

Being a lifeguard was one of the few opportunities Geprier Wicking had as a Breton in Alabaster to find gainful employment that required people to listen to her. She liked it when people listened to her, especially the haughty elves. It was her mission in life to make sure every elf who went to the swimming section knew they had to answer to her.

The red and orange swimsuit provided for the guards was hideous, but Geprir did her best to make it fashionable. A net over her hair to keep it in place, smoked glasses with bedazzling stones around the frame, and a stylish yellow towel to give her an autumnal look.

She spent hours sitting atop her perch on an artificial island out in the water, only breaking from rigid stillness to whistle at infractions and bark orders. It was great. The Khajiit locals were respectful of her, some even thanked her for keeping the elves in line. Too many Altmer or Maomer men were handsy that afternoon. The Rhojiit from Winter Town, the neighborhood outside the northern city wall, didn’t need her protection -- Rhojiit pre-teens were taller than the average Nord. Other than some shouting at other human groups to put on shirts -- it was illegal to go bare-chested in Elsweyr -- the elves were the only problem.

Until she saw the telltale splashes of someone drowning. There were things one looked for -- mouth near the waterline or open and gasping, not using the legs despite being horizontal, hyperventilation. And her smoked glasses were bewitched with an effect which told her the ones in genuine danger from the ones being dramatic.

That helped ever so slightly. Just a smidge.

She grabbed the life triangle and lept off her perch. Ice magic was great for sculpting a path to slide directly to the at risk swimmer while getting people away. No one wanted to swim in cold water. Except the Nords, but they were weirdos like that.

With practiced ease she threw the life triangle at the drowning victim -- the inflated ring floated nearby, and provided a barrier between Geprier and the victim as she dove into the water. If she went to his side directly, he’d drag her down too -- the life triangle between them kept them both safe and afloat.

Other lifeguards saw her recover the victim, a Lilmothiit kid dressed like he’d just come from a party, and met up at Geprier’s island. She focused on using healing magic to help the fox-folk’s body eject water it had inhaled and recovered from shock. The fox was a weird one -- didn’t look like one of the types that had immigrated in the last wave. His colors were all wrong, and one of his eyes had been messed up. When she tried to lay healing magic on the eye, there was no visible change and the fox smacked her hand away.

“Kid,” she said as part of the job. “What happened, why did you go swimming in party clothes?”

The Lilmothiit sighed. “Daedric sense of urgency.”

Geprier decided the kid obviously had some kind of narcosis and needed to be sent to a doctor right away.

\--

Five internet cookies for the folks at home who can tell who Suangen, Vvarden Vey, Seth, and Riana are. And ten internet cookies for anyone who thinks I just imported Rihanna as a daedric prince because reasons.


	2. To Llorona's House

Chugging along!

\--

**Chapter 2: To Llorona’s House**

He didn’t notice it at first on account of how blindingly bright everything was, but there was no ceiling on Nirn. He’d talked about it, he’d talked about the clouds and the sun, but when his eyes adjusted to see in the bright light and he looked up -- it just kept going. Like a chasm, but in reverse. When he saw it, he’d grabbed onto the Breton woman who had helped him to the first aid station and tried to look at the ground.

“See,” she told her fellow lifeguards. “Kid’s spooked. Wouldn’t be outside his skulk if he hadn’t been teleported by someone.” The stylish Breton, Geprier, didn’t make a fuss about him clinging to her -- perhaps it was a lifeguard thing. “Just look at ‘im, dressed in black in this heat?”

Another of the guards, a lamia with verdant green and black scales with a lifeguard’s top on shook her lower jaw in consideration. “The most likely thing is that he encountered a portal mishap when he was brought to immigration by his parents, and simply went off course. We report him to immigration, they take him back to his family.”

“The immigration office is closed though,” the third lifeguard, a Nord woman with her long blonde hair done up in a complex braid. She was more muscular than Geprier but less than the lamia, though she had fewer scars than either. “All their offices are.”

“Kid,” Geprier shook her arm to get Edllarno’s attention. “Do you know the address you were being assigned? ...Do they even tell migrants that before they get here?”

“I’m not a kid,” Edllarno said and forced himself to pull away from the Breton. He immediately clung to the bench he sat on when he caught a passing glance at the sky. “I’m… a man now. I can… live on my own.” That thought scared him. He never thought he’d ever leave the family home forever. All his visions of the future had his mamá and sisters there to support him, as he’d support them. How was he going to keep a house clean all by himself? How was he going to find a mate and raise children properly all by himself?

He didn’t have much choice -- Riana had given him a job. All he could do was excel at it, because failure was not acceptable. But apparently his dismay showed in his ears and tail, because the Breton patted him on the shoulder.

“You got kicked out, huh? Well, you gotta live somewhere. We could take you to The Lodge and maybe another Lilmothiit family will take you in?” Geprier rubbed her chin in consideration. “Oh!” She snapped her finger as an idea came to her. “You could go to Llorona’s house!”

Edllarno’s ears perked up as he squinted at the Breton. “Llorona has a house here?” How did the spirit of regret have a house? “Why would I want to live there?”

“Oh right, Llorona doesn’t have any houses in Oblivion,” the Nord lifeguard said with the tone of sudden realization. “It’s like a school and a sanctuary rolled into one? People who don’t have a place to go live there, and it's where children are sent to learn their letters.”

“We can send for one of the caretakers to come and get you, hopefully before you die of heatstroke.” Geprier patted Edllarno’s shoulder again.

The three lifeguards left him alone as they went back to their islands, or stepped inside a hut marked with a red triangle on a white background. This afforded Edllarno a chance to inspect where he had been dropped off. A shore of some strange body of liquid -- like azure plasma, but less viscous, and without an innate glow of its own. It reflected light like a mirror, even as hundreds of bodies splashed about -- really painful to look at with the sun overhead.

Everything was _so bright_. There were colors he’d never seen, patterns he’d never seen, and more importantly _so many races_ he’d never seen! Men, with their lack of fur and squished faces. Elves with their enormous eyes, egg-shaped heads, and colorful hides. Saxhleel with scales and feathers and horns! Lamias with their snake tail lower bodies! A panoply of people! There were also the Khajiit, cat-people of various sizes and shapes -- who seemed at home in the sand and waves, though the rarely ventured to the water.

Edllarno knew these things -- but he didn’t know _how_ he knew them. Were these subjects taught in school and he only now remembered them? Possibly -- he had been more focused on learning how to pretend to sip wine at social functions.

“Alright kid,” Geprier said as she stepped out of the hut. “One of those pink coats is coming by to take you to Llorona’s house in the Lodge. Should be easy to spot, what with the pink coat.” She rested her hands on her hips and shrugged. “But you stay here, out of the water, until they get here. If we had enslaved air, I’d let you stay in the hut. As-is, stay in the shade and feel free to pant. Welcome to Elsweyr.” She turned and started to walk off toward the waterline.

“Um. Thank you!” He waved at the woman and watched her go. She raised her hand to let him know she’d heard, but kept on walking.

While he waited, he continued to people watch. The typical swimming attire appeared to be a wrap around the chest over the breasts, covered with a colorful shawl or poncho, and far more revealing bottoms. A range from loose pants to borderline baring the goods. Edllarno began to notice a subtle divide. The beastfolk were _demonstrably_ more at ease with each other than they were with the men or elves, who in turn didn’t seem to willingly interact. The beastfolk were also demonstrably wealthier than the elves or men -- more often, they had jewelry on, often nice-looking, and their swimwear was more likely to be bright with intricate patterns.

Edllarno was so distracted by the enticing patterns on a Rhojiit’s swim-trousers that he didn’t notice right away when a shadow passed over the beach. The shadow seemed to quiet the beach goers down by its mere presence, so naturally he stepped out of the shade to look up at it.

A long, wide tube of ribbed metal plates floated in the air, upward-curved points capped in gold at both ends, with four devices spinning massive blades for propulsion positioned on the sides. A box-like structure hung down from the bottom, a symbol of an orange and white feline head with black stripes holding a star in its jaws painted on. It moved quickly, and when it had passed the mood improved a lot. Of course without the shade it had provided, Edllarno had to quickly duck back into the shadows.

“How do people live with this heat,” he asked himself as he wiped the seat off his palms. His shoes would stink for days, he was sweating so much. Which cruel god made it so they could only sweat on their palms and feet -- Edllarno would swear to their destruction.

“Believe it or not, after a while, you get used to it.”

Edllarno jumped at the sudden voice. Leaning on the hut’s wall was a man. Dark-skinned, like some of the men which Edllarno had seen before, with a cleft chin and faint freckles across his cheeks and nose. He was dressed in loose trousers, and a long shirt with a broad and tasseled pink sash tied across his chest -- no shoes or sandals, just leather bands with pink beads around his ankles.

The Nirn-native smirked at the fox-folk. “You’ve never seen a Redguard before. Hope I make a good impression.” He pushed off the hut, pushed his closed fist into his open palm, and bowed. “Saluk, minder of Llorona’s house in the Lodge. I’ve come to show you the way.” He smiled when he stood up. “And to provide you a mirror to clean up with.”

Without prompting, the Redguard handed a compact mirror to Edllarno who was distracted by how horribly his makeup had run. He didn’t have any replacement makeup available, so he had to quickly clean it off and risk going out plainfaced. “How did you sneak up on me,” the fox-man demanded, his ears red as he thought about how many people had seen him like _that_. Also how a man had snuck up on someone raised as Riana wanted.

“Llorona’s floors creak at night,” Saluk responded. As if that was all the explanation he needed to provide. “You will learn to manage it as well, until you get a house of your own. Are you ready?”

Edllarno was given a leather cord with pink beads to wear on his wrist to let any government officials know he was a guest of Llorona, which he still didn’t understand. Why was Llorona, the spirit of regret, respected in such a way? He’d always seen her portrayed as a woman in white in the operas, not pink. It was stuff he wanted to ask about, but it would be humiliating to admit ignorance in public, and he had a tough time navigating as is.

“I can’t see very well,” the fox-folk muttered as he held his hand up against the glare of lights. Past the beach was a city of stone, polished glass, and metal. Sunlight would bounce off any reflective surface and hone in on his eyes, then he would see spots for minutes at a time and had to stumble around until his vision cleared. Every time, Saluk would be nearby -- stopped to wait for Edllarno.

“I think... perhaps a cellar room for you,” the Redguard said as he tapped his lower lip inquisitively. “Your light-sensitivity is odd, none of the other Lilmothiit have such a condition.”

“I’m just not used to it, is all,” the young beastfolk defended himself with flushed ears.

“Obviously. The Lodge is on the other side of Alabaster, so we had best go a shady route.” Saluk turned so sharply his sash’s tassels bounced. “Follow me, if you please.” Saluk turned and lead the foxfolk down an alley. It was thankfully dark, relative to the bright and shiny city around it.

From the sounds of things, they stayed relatively close to the ocean. There were birds calling and water slapping the stones, Edllarno could hear. He enjoyed the shade, it didn’t sting his eyes as bad -- until he started to smell something foul.

Saluk had gone down the alley, and stopped at a metal disk etched with two moons and a shooting star set into the stone. He stomped his foot, and the disk jumped enough for Saluk to get his foot under it and move it away. The foul stench grew sevenfold, to the point where it burned in Edllarno’s eyes and nose. Almost literally. 

He struggled to keep from retching, and had to wheeze in order to speak. “What in the pit…?”

“This route has the most shade available.” Saluk spoke like he didn’t smell the hideous stink at all. “And it goes all over Old Town, including to the Dogate -- which we need to pass through to get to the Lodge.”

“What the hell even… urp, is the Lodge?” Edllarno’s ears flipped back.

“Oh, you haven’t been told?” Saluk shrugged, and looked down the hole the metal disk had covered. “The Lodge is the district outside the western wall, where the Lilmothiit are given state-sponsored housing. So many of them are coming to Alabaster, people assume it’s a Lilmothiit district, but that’s only a recent thing.”

“I…” Edllarno’s ears sagged down. “I think I need a geography lesson. I don’t remember where Alabaster is.”

“Oh that’s easily remedied once we get to Llorona’s house. Which we should resume travelling to.” Saluk smiled and gestured to the hole. “After you.”

\--

“Congratulations,” Saluk chimed as his companion left the fetid sewers to gasp at fresh air. “You survived an encounter with a sewer skittle!”

Edllarno huffed and puffed and blew chunks all over the cobbled road they’d exited onto. He hadn’t wanted to see his mamá’s cooking again that way. “Why,” he wheezed after he’d evacuated his stomach contents all over the ground, “was there a giant lobster in the sewer?”

“Not a lobster, a skittle. You can tell by that pastel color scheme it had.” Saluk spun the metal disk that had covered the hole, and dropped it back whence it came. “Sewer skittles are skittles that are sick, and come into the sewers to isolate.” Saluk casually walked over to the hunched-over fox-folk and crouched down. “Here, let me help with that bent tail.”

Edllarno thought Saluk would ‘help’ by forcing the broken tail back into rightness, which would have been almost as painful as having it broken initially. Instead he saw golden light gather around the Redguard’s hands and twist around his busted tail. In moments, the fluffy limb had unbroken itself without a mote of pain.

“A bit of healing, free of charge,” the Redguard grinned as he stood up and interlocked his hands behind his head. “Ready to go when you are.”

The poor fox-folk had a few more retches to do before he would be able to stand up. The hideous smell of the sewers lingered in his nose and clothes, it made him gag any time he focused on it. With a profound display of willpower given how his day had gone, Edllarno stood up. The Dogate was a massive gatehouse in the city’s curtain wall, flanked on either side with statues of tigers with mouths agape and ducal horn hats on their heads.

The sun had moved positions, Edllarno noticed as he walked with his back to the bright ball of light. Shadows were longer, and the light had become more orange than bright white. As they walked to the Dogate, Edllarno saw many people -- Saxhleel, Redguards, and Bretons, mostly -- in the roads and going about their businesses. Most of the Khajiit he saw were working at a shop or a stall except one. He saw a speckled-fur cat-folk dart among the crowd with his hands full of goodies. A pickpocket.

“That’s Lo’wuizen,” Saluk said conversationally as they walked. “Still a student of the Baandari ways, but he learns quickly.”

“Why are you telling me that?” Edllarno asked with narrowed eyes.

“You have the look of a Baandari about you,” Saluk answered with a smile. “And you also had _far too many_ lockpicks in your pockets to not have the talent for it.”

Edllarno’s tail bushed up a bit and his hand went to his coat and trouser pockets -- where his lockpicks had suddenly ceased to be. As well as his blessing dagger. He scowled at the Redguard.

Saluk’s smile became mischievous. “Welcome to Elsweyr.” And as if it were perfectly normal, he led the fox-folk through the Dogate and into the Lodge.

Wooden buildings immediately became more common, as did more humble decorations than statues at the hearts of plazas. Edllarno saw a russet red Lilmothiit drawing with chalk on a large slate board to advertise for her business, he saw laundry lines which stretched across the road on pulleys, he saw quatrefoil patterns on almost every fox-owned surface.

There were familiar smells. He could smell empanadas, salchipapas, he saw a stand selling griddle cakes with custard dollops on top, and corn on a stick! If he hadn’t thrown up minutes ago, he’d be hungry from the smells. Food stalls were set up on the big roads, where they could be out of the way of the established shops. But as the sun moved, their operators began to pack up and cart their stalls away.

Every beastfolk they passed stiffened and covered their nose as Edllarno passed by, which made the cinnarous fox feel even more like a sore thumb. He saw the foxes of the other fox-gods, but none of Riana’s. He was the only one.

“Llorona’s house in the Lodge is close by,” Saluk said. “This way,” he said as he ducked under a rug into an alleyway. When Edllarno followed, he found the walls of the alley heavy with fox-folk peddlers. More than one gagged at the sewer smell on him, but a couple -- particularly the russet red foxes which belonged to Suangen -- arched their brows at his arrival. “Sorry,” Saluk said out loud to the peddlers they passed. “He doesn’t have any money -- I checked.”

A disappointed sigh rolled through the fox-folk. Followed by a tawdry laugh. “Send him my way when he wants to make money!”

“Typical Suangeni,” Edllarno muttered. “I’m not a harlot.”

“Not yet, anyway!”

Edllarno’s hackles rose, but before he could turn and shout at the harlotkeeper, Saluk pushed him through the cloth at the end of the alley. “I take it the Suangeni are able to do their business in the open?”

Saluk stopped and arched his brow at Edllarno. “This is Elsweyr. Things are not so prudish as they are in Alinor, or as harsh as Skyrim. All may ply their trade, so long as they pay their tax and honor the moons with cleverness. Harlots, thieves, embezzlers, all may find work so long as they pay their tax.”

Edllarno blinked rapidly as he struggled to parse what he’d heard. “You tax your thieves?”

“The Daedra don’t?” Saluk raised his eyebrows. “I suppose that’s why they get robbed so often.” He shrugged and started walking again.

Llorona’s house may have been a mansion at one point in its history, but those days were long gone. The city had clearly grown around it, and into whatever yard it may have had attached. It was a three-floored building, all of stone, with pointed spires and Khajiiti spiked, layered roofs. Khajiiti women dressed in shawls and with massive pythons wrapped around them were immortalized as statues, holding glowing glass baubles which illuminated the house in the dark. Snakes were a recurring theme in the design elements.

Curiously, there was a crowd of people outside the doors to the house, peacefully waiting. As they approached, the doors opened up and a tide of children ran out. They sought out specific adults, their parents or minders most likely, and departed happy. Among the crowd of children were grown men and beastfolk wearing long pink coats embroidered with black snakes. A coat Saluk distinctly lacked. 

“And there we have it, Llorona’s house in the Lodge.” Saluk patted Edllarno on his shoulder and turned to walk away. “I’ll leave you to the minders, see you soon.” As his hand pulled away, Edllarno raised his to meet it and delivered a small scratch with one of his blunt claws. The Redguard yelped and yanked his hand away, the sudden yank gave the game away. His brief touch had undone Edllarno’s silk tie, and he had been about to walk off with it.

The fox-folk snatched his tie back, and swiped at the Redguard. Saluk jumped away, but Edllarno got something for his attack. He’d found the hilt of his blessing dagger under Saluk’s sash and grabbed it. Saluk still had the sheath, but the dagger was more valuable.

Saluk’s eyes widened for a moment as he processed he’d been counter-robbed.

“You should’ve made us get here faster,” Edllarno admonished him. “I knew something was up when I saw their coats, and how you don’t have one.” He flicked the dagger around so the blade was not outwardly threatening. Perhaps another fox-folk might have been upset, but he was one of Riana’s foxes. Stealing and re-stealing were training and fun games for them.

“Maybe,” Saluk admitted and shrugged. “But there’s always next time.”

“You’re right.” Edllarno nodded at him. “Next time, I’ll get my lockpicks back.” At last, sort of back in his element, Edllarno got the confidence to be proactive again. Maybe he wouldn’t be so terribly out of place with the denizens of Nirn, if this was how they behaved.

Then a portly child, feeling unwell, threw up on him as he passed by to enter Llorona’s house. It was the perfect way to end his first ‘day’ on Nirn.

\---

Really shouldn't have packed four pudding bowls in the kid's lunch, even if it is his favorite.


	3. You are Here

**Chapter Three: You are Here**  
  
  
The minders of Llorona’s house didn’t need any lengthy explanations for Edllarno’s presence. He told them he had nowhere to go, and they let him in. One of the first things they did was offer him something to wear while they cleaned his charro suit. They provided a linen shirt and vest, locksley pants, a cloak, gloves, and a pair of wooden sandals.  
  
As Saluk had predicted, they directed him to the cellar to pick a room for his use. It was all handled quickly, efficiently, and they didn’t bat an eye at the bandages around his chest. Inside, the pink and black snake patterns were joined by elements of pastel greens and blues. It seemed eerily familiar, but Edllarno couldn’t place where from.  
  
The cellar was blessedly dark and cool, with urns topped with candles for limited light and stone statues of coiled snakes for artistic display, and intricate rugs laid out on the floor. In short, it was not like the cellars back in the Shade, where they were for storing food or hiding in an emergency.  
  
It was worth repeating that the Shade wasn’t _safe_.  
  
The clack of his sandals on the stone made Edllarno flick his ears back, it would be so hard to sneak by with them. His ears remained low as he found what looked to be the ‘cellar rooms’, a long hallway of heavy metal doors set into elaborate stone door frames. They had inscriptions on them, perhaps numbers or the names of the occupants. He peaked in through a barred hole in the door and saw that some were occupied, and others not. Two of the seemingly empty ones he picked were locked, while the third opened with a faint creak. A key was on a hook inside, so he assumed it was vacant.  
  
Inside was a narrow bed, a wooden desk and chair with an unlit lantern, and a shelf laden with books. He took the key off the hook as he closed the door behind him, and examined the room. Mostly bare, plenty of space to add things later, and the only decoration being the stone work. The young fox-folk set down his blessing dagger on the table, and went to look at the books.  
  
It was at that time that Edllarno realized he couldn’t read whatever the local language was. One of the books was helpfully written in common. ‘Ta’agra for stupids.’ Edllarno didn’t know how to feel about being one of the ‘stupids’, but he sat down and cracked open the book. The light from the hall was more than enough for him to read by.  
  
It was like home, he realized. A small-ish room with little decoration and books to read. That had been his life before his abuela invited him to share her room as she started to fade. When she passed, the room passed to him. As it would pass to his next oldest sister, now that he had gone.  
  
Sinitia would appreciate getting abuela’s antique comb and pearl necklace, since Edllarno had no way to go back for them. He would never go back, likely never see them again. Would they consider him dead? Put up a pictograph next to the deceased? Would tía Milliel lord it over his mamá how ‘right’ she was?  
  
He hadn’t realized he was crying until drops started to fall on the book. He didn’t want to risk damaging it, so he closed it shut and tried to control himself. He was one of Riana’s foxes, and they were _professionals_. He had a job, and he brought honor to his family by doing it. It was shameful that he would want to see them again more than do his job!  
  
Needless to say, he didn’t regain control of his feelings much at all. At least he wasn’t bawling.  
  
There was a gentle knock at the metal door. Edllarno was already barefaced, he didn’t need to worry about running makeup, so he cleaned up quickly to greet the visitor. At the door was a black and orange striped Saxhleel in a pink coat, one of the minders of Llorona’s house. Their figure was rather muscular, but Edllarno didn’t know enough about the race of lizard-folk to judge their gender. They held in their hands a stack of clothes -- nothing fancy.  
  
“We found more in your size, brother,” the Saxhleel said with pleasant rolling tones. Not quite the same as Lilmothiit rolls, but similar. “And something special for you. May I come in?”  
  
“Sure.” The fox-folk stood aside and closed the door. “I’m Edllarno Villaverde.”  
  
“I’m Stands-In-Wonder,” the Saxhleel replied, and set the clothes on the table. They adjusted the pile and laid down some white squares nearby. “Handkerchiefs. There is no shame in expressing yourself in Alabaster, brother.”  
  
The fox-folk hardened himself, and sighed through his nose. “I’m fine.”  
  
“If you say so.” The saxhleel shuffled the clothes around some more and produced a trio of fabric tubes. “Wearing bandages like that for too long can hurt you. These will achieve the same result, but are safer to wear for hours on end. One size fits most.”  
  
That threw Edllarno for a loop. He’d been the only person with that problem he’d ever known, and the fact that someone had something ready to help with it made him suspicious. “What’s the catch?”  
  
“They have to be washed after use, so you have to do laundry every other day to constantly have a clean one on standby in case you get thrown up on. Until you are able to buy more.” Stands-In-Wonder said and shrugged. Their face wasn’t very emotive, and their eyes hardly moved; this made it hard to tell if they were lying.  
  
“No - what do you get out of helping me?”  
  
“A few more scraps of kindness in the Aurbis,” the Saxhleel moved toward the door again. “It’s what Llorona would ask me to do, and what she would do if she were here.”  
  
Edllarno’s ears flicked back and he squinted at the lizard-folk. “Why would she? She’s the spirit of regret -- she’s not a goddess. Why would you say she wants you -- or anyone -- to be kind?”  
  
Stands-In-Wonder blinked slowly at him then pulled a book from the shelf. “The book of Llorona. When you can read ta’agra, you might want to give it a read.” The lizard folk opened it and flipped through the pages. “The legend should explain the situation.”  
  
The fox-folk’s tail went listles as he listened.  
  
“Llorona was once a woman in the Fourth Era,” Stands-in-Wonder read of the book. “Wed, was she, to the Emperor of Men. She bore to him two children who walked like the moons until the moons walked like them. But she was tojay, and small. The childbearing was difficult for her. The third child killed her, and in his rage the Emperor bound her soul to Nirn forever. She would watch over her children until the sun went out.”  
  
Something viscerally angry and _hot_ woke in Edllarno’s chest and he bared his teeth. “That’s not what happened!”  
  
Stands-In-Wonder shrugged. “You are not the first Lilmothiit to be confused. Near as we can tell, your version of Llorona is older. And because our Llorona was once mortal, we suspect she was named for the spirit of regret. Two legends, the same name.”  
  
That seemed wrong too, but less wrong. The anger which had filled him for a moment faded quickly. “I’m… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have shouted.”  
  
“But it’s understandable why you did.” Stands-In-Wonder replaced the book on the shelf. “Lilmothiit are quite possessive over their culture, not keen to share. And why would they be? Locked away in Oblivion for thousands of years, only to return and find nothing of them left.” The Saxhleel inclined their head. “I can only offer to help you understand the world as it is now.” The lizard-folk walked toward the door. “Do you want something to eat, or should we leave you be until morning? ...When the sun comes up.” The last part was added as one of Edllarno’s ears cocked itself in confusion.  
  
“I... think I can skip a meal, and be okay.” Edllarno narrowed his eyes as he began to notice strange smells. “But why do you say ‘we’?”  
  
The lizard-folk smirked. “You’re the first of a new type of Lilmothiit. You’re popular, especially with artists. Which, given this is Alabaster, is a majority of the population.” They pointed with their thumb at the door. “Interested parties are peeking in.”  
  
Edllarno glanced at the barred window in the door and saw an eye which quickly ducked away. “...Don’t suppose there’s a cover for that?”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“Figures.”  
  
\--  
  
Edllarno rapidly learned that going upstairs in the day was dangerous. Not because he could barely see with the bright lights, or because he still needed to be seen to by immigration, but because the children were afoot. Children from six to sixteen were out and about in Llorona’s house, moving from classes to meals to play time. Apparently there were rooms in the cellar where they would play sports of some kind -- Edllarno hadn’t explored too much to find them yet.  
  
He was busy trying to learn ta’agra so he could read things like the morning news summary, or the maps hung up in the geography classroom. Stands-In-Wonder had told him they would find something in common for him to compare -- but ta’agra was the most common written language in Eslweyr, he would have to learn.  
  
On that topic, Elsweyr was much bigger than Edllarno had thought. The last map of Tamriel he’d seen had eight provinces including an archipelago. But when he looked at the modern map, even though he couldn’t read it, he could tell something had happened. There was less land -- like the continent had sunk slightly. Apparently there had been a flood? And the provinces were different. There was a new archipelago directly west of Tamriel, for instance. Another archipelago, further south than the others, had been added. The two southern archipelagos and a rough section of the mainland to the west of southern Elsweyr were all colored the same.  
  
Meanwhile Elsweyr was identified by a symbol on the map which he recognized. A big crescent moon with a smaller crescent facing into it -- together they surrounded a star. Elsweyr seemed to stretch across the continent, going from the southern coast and the banks of the Niben river -- one of the few geographic points Edllarno remembered -- and traveled upward. Elsweyr had expanded into the north, where it cut two other states into peninsulas, and creeped into the northernmost province. The entire southeast corner of the continent, from the Niben river on, was all one state, which expanded as far north as the southern shore of the inner sea.  
  
What troubled him was that the map showed a _second_ continent, with its own states and totally unfamiliar geography. However, in the exact same color as Elsweyr on the Tamriel map was a state with a symbol he recognized. A striped feline holding a star in its jaws.  
  
“Ka Po’ Tun,” said a voice which made Edllarno jump. He had been in his room, looking at a loaned map, and he expected to be alone. At the door’s window was a familiar set of eyes -- Saluk. “The Tiger-Dragon’s Empire. Allies and blood kin to the Khajiit and their Empire of the Moon. They always have nice things to swipe, if you don’t mind having guns pointed at you.”  
  
Edllarno’s ears cocked. “Guns?”  
  
“Oh, you don’t know? That’ll be a surprise when you get to stealing from them.” Saluk tilted his head back. “Get your shoes on, we’re going to grab some stuff from the docks.”  
  
Edllarno’s eyes narrowed. “And why would I go anywhere with you?”  
  
“You want to earn money to get a place of your own, or are you okay with creeps like Sherike watching you while you sleep?”  
  
“I am sketching!” A voice in the hall said, indignant. “For a portrait!”  
  
“I’ve seen your watercolors,” Edllarno barked. “I’m not letting you paint me until you get higher quality stuff -- it’s insulting to look like a _blob!_ ”  
  
Saluk rolled his eyes. “So, you in?”  
  
Edllarno’s ears twitched while he considered. Then, he folded the map up and put it away. “I’m in.”  
  
\--  
  
“You know, in hindsight, telling you to put your shoes on was a terrible idea.”  
  
Edllarno rolled his eyes as his wooden sandals clacked on the stone road. The cloak he’d been provided had a hood, so it protected his eyes from the bright and blinding sunlight. “You sure the cloak won’t give me away?”  
  
“What? No.” Saluk glanced at him and considered. “Hmm, maybe a little. You’re sweating too much to be comfortable with that.” Saluk guided Edllarno through the city -- past the Dogate again, and into what he called Old Town. Once inside Old Town it was slow going as they headed for a place called the ‘chardocks’. Any time Edllarno dared to look up, he saw that the air was thick with more metal tube ships like he’d seen on his first day. Not all of them had the same design as the Ka Po’ Tun airship, but they looked similar. The sky still filled him with stomach-dropping dread, he dared not look for long. “The Skittle Run will happen any day, and that means jewelers will be coming out of the woodwork to get pearls fresh from the oyster. Chefs will also come by for the prime seafood, and treasure hunters will want whatever relics of previous Eras are locked onto the skittle shells.”  
  
“...Why would giant lobsters have oysters for pearls? Or treasures?” Edllarno watched as a small watercraft dragged a hovering airship to the docks to be lashed down, while two others pulled airships back out to the harbor.  
  
“Not all skittles look like lobsters. But these ones spend so much time in the ocean that creatures grow onto them. It’s not rare to see a walking coral reef come ashore during the Run.” The road started to slope down toward the chardocks, Saluk had no problems on the uneven ground but he giggled at Edllarno’s fumbling. “Man, you must’ve grown up on a prairie or something.”  
  
“Or something, yeah.” Edllarno passed by a russet red Suangen Lilmothiit who giggled at his clumsiness, and felt his ears warm up in embarrassment. “Did we have to go this way?”  
  
“No, but I’m glad we did. It’s made me realize how much practice on a rotating coil you need.” Saluk tapped his chin as they approached. “What we’re doing is a simple dead drop pickup. I grab the goods, you watch for me, honor my memory if I die a glorious death.”  
  
“Your memory of laughing as I got my tail crushed by a giant lobster, making me walk through a sewer, and robbed me multiple times,” Edllarno responded, sardonic.  
  
“Truly. As the moons would want it,” Saluk placed his hand over his chest, below his heart. “Once I have the dead drop, you’re free to do whatever until it’s time to go. I’m going to watch the harbor for signs of the Skittle Run for a bit, then we head back.”  
  
“...Did you make me put on these noisy shoes, and walk out just to be a spotter for you?”  
  
“No, no no no.” Saluk paused, and scratched his nose. “Well, yes.”  
  
Edllarno stopped, and turned on his foot, intending to go back to Llorona’s house. Of course, in so doing, the thong on the sandal snapped. Already unsteady on the hill, Edllarno proceeded to tumble down the hill while his sandal sole chased after him. Many of the passers-by were treated to the sight of a Lilmothiit, normally so calm and collected, debased by gravity. Though they cursed gravity, as Edllarno did, many could not contain the desire for laughter. Even less so after he finally stopped his rolling by chance -- he had managed to grab a cart wheel as he rolled passed -- only to be struck in the head by his own sole and made to roll further.  
  
“Wow,” Saluk said as he approached Edllarno after he’d stopped rolling at the gates of the chardocks. “That was unlucky.”  
  
“Ow,” the fox-folk muttered.  
  
“But at least it happened now, before anyone was chasing you.” Saluk offered a hand up.  
  
Edllarno rejected the hand up and forced himself stand even though it hurt. “If I hadn’t followed you, it wouldn’t have happened at all.”  
  
Saluk took the rejection in stride, and grinned. “Tell yourself that all day if it makes you feel better. Tell you what, I’ll cut you in if you stick with it. That way, you can afford a new set of shoes.”  
  
With narrowed eyes, Edllarno shook his finger at Saluk. However he realized he had no idea where his sandal sole had gone to, and he looked lopsided with only one on. “...Fine. But you don’t wear shoes, so I’m not taking any advice on good shoes from you.”  
  
“Fair!”  
  
\--  
  
Edllarno never got to see what the dead drop was, nor did he ask about it. There was more to do at the time, and he didn’t want to ask a question he didn’t want the answer to. He’d run into one of those when he asked why so much of Elsweyr’s food was sweet. The fact that literally every Khajiit and Rhojiit he’d seen before or since were on a perpetual narcotic high, using different substances, was disturbing.  
  
After Saluk had gotten his dead drop, Edllarno plied some skill as a pickpocket at the chardocks. He was out of practice, and as Riana had said, he needed work on it. His haul wasn’t great -- three gold coins, a knot of silk ribbons, a journal, and a map tied around a gold coin different from the others, but oddly familiar. It had the words ‘Septim’ on it, which seemed correct while the ta’agra words on the other coins seemed odd. He put the journal, the septim, and the map away on his bookshelf, for later once he knew how to read ta’agra.  
  
There was a knock at his door, and a mass of russet red hair in the window when Edllarno looked. The fox-folk approached the door and looked through the window. There was one of those bull-folk people, Minotaurs. But small. Like the Rhojiit, Minotaurs were taller than most humans by the time of puberty, so what he saw was a young child by their standard.  
  
“Hello, sir,” said the calf. She was covered in red hair which blocked her eyes, her horns just barely peaked out of her mop-like head hair. “Would you like to come to the art class with us today?”  
  
Edllarno was tempted to say no, but he remembered how Riana had been pleased with his artistic talent -- which he hadn’t practiced in a long time. “...you won’t mind a weirdo fox being in the class?”  
  
“Nuh!” The calf was pleased, she could sense what the answer would be. “You’re not weirder than Sherike!”  
  
“Hey!” A voice shouted from down the hallway.  
  
The art class took place outside in what used to be the house’s backyard. It had been paved over as roads were laid down nearby, and all that remained was a fenced in playspace and a greenhouse. Little art stations had been set up for pottery, painting, clay sculpting, and other forms of art. To Edllarno’s relief, he wasn’t the only grownup there -- there were dedicated artists and adult students, mostly other Lilmothiit.  
  
To his surprise, they weren’t the black and white marbled foxes of Seth, but the short, golden, and large-eared foxes of Vvarden Vey. The Gift-Giver’s foxes had a youthful air about them, which made them seem childish to more mature Lilmothiit groups, but they were persuasive. Dangerously so.  
  
Or maybe Edllarno was buying too much into racial stereotypes, he thought as his right eye stung.  
  
“I hope you have fun,” the calf said and went to the oil painting section.  
  
“You too,” Edllarno replied, to be polite. He didn’t even know the girl. He looked at the various booths and considered what he wanted to do. Sketching would be fun, but he didn’t want to paint anything from the sketches. Sculpting was never his thing, and pottery bored him. He passed by booths while instructors taught the basics, until he came to a tailor’s booth.  
  
His right eye stung again, and Edllarno was drawn to the booth where a Bosmer instructed a few interested children and adults in how to measure fabric before a cut. It seemed familiar, like something he’d learned long ago but had forgotten. When the instructor passed out materials for them to practice with, Edllarno instinctively went to work. Before the instructor had finished explaining, he had finished the sleeve they’d been asked to make.  
  
The bespectacled elf looked over Edllarno’s work with bemusement. “Are… you from a tailor’s family, son?”  
  
“No,” Edllarno responded. He offered a half-truth to explain it. “My father was a hunter.”  
  
“Ah, that might explain it. Hides, and such. Good trade, honest work.” The tailor tapped the sleeve the Lilmothiit had made, and nodded appreciatively. “You have talent, son. It needs work, but you have it. Would you mind helping with some of the others?”  
  
At the end of the class, Edllarno had something to look forward to other than reading books, or waiting for immigration to open again. He had a job offer, an apprenticeship at a tailor in the southern Lodge. It would have been fine, if he hadn’t come back to find Saluk in his room, on his bed, reading the journal he stole.  
  
“I’m not taking it with me, it’s your loot,” the Redguard thief said as he flipped the page. “But reading how this guy got offended because his last three outings didn’t result in an immediate marriage is almost worth stealing.” He rolled his eyes. “Maormer, making the Altmer look like amateurs in hubris.”  
  
“Good to know… wait,” Edllarno paused as he went to sit at his desk. “Why would a Maormer write in ta’agra?”  
  
“Hmm, probably because he’s writing in Maormeri and they use the same alphabet.” Saluk turned the page and oohed at some spicy new detail. “Oh my, he’s getting into politics! Ten chal’ams says he’s an Appleseed. A loyalist of the Applicedo empire, islands to the south and Valenwood,” he added the last part like he expected it to be asked.  
  
“Is that what these are called? Chal’ams?” Edllarno held up one of the coins he’d swiped and examined it.  
  
“Yep. They used to do it in gold, silver, and copper coins, but they switched it to gold coins of different sizes.” Saluk flipped a page. “Speaking of which.” He reached under his sash and produced a leather purse, which he tossed to Edllarno. “Your cut. Don’t spend it all in one place.”  
  
“There’s two chal’ams and a hunk of cheese in here,” Edllarno snarled as he examined the bag’s contents.  
  
“Yeah, you got a cut. Be grateful I thought of your health and added the cheese.” The Redguard made finger-wands at him, then went back to reading. “How’re you liking things on Nirn so far?”  
  
“Well,” Edllarno said as he picked the cheese chunk out of the bag and sniffed it. “Not… as terrible as I thought. I… feel rudderless, but I’m not dead yet. I’m used to that being more of a concern.”  
  
“Well, yeah, Nirn is safer than Oblivion. Sort of. Slightly. Hypothetically.” He downgraded his sentiment after a moment of thought repeatedly. “At least there’s no Falmer this far south -- that was so _annoying_ to deal with up north. I’d go into the cellar for a tool or something and a charrus would bite me on the ankle. Ugh.”  
  
“So is this another country’s coin?” Edllarno retrieved the septim and held it up.  
  
Saluk glanced at it, then went back to reading. Then he did a double-take and looked at the coin properly.  
  
“And suddenly I am a lot more suspicious of showing it to you.”  
  
“You should be. Put that in a safe somewhere, it’s a valuable piece that might just save your bacon someday.” Saluk wagged his finger at Edllarno. “Clever. Stealing something super valuable while at the chardocks. Maybe it’s time to make you an offer.”  
  
“An offer?”  
  
“To join a club,” Saluk said, and sat up. After he dropped the journal on the bed, he reached under his sash and produced a scrap of paper with a diamond formed around a circle drawn on it. “A gentleman’s club, really.”


	4. Hidden Knife

Work has been kicking me about the head recently, so I'm digging into reserves for this.

\---

**Chapter Four: Hidden Knife.**

He had to go to the Guild on his own. Saluk could invite him, but he couldn’t guide to it. Edllarno had to show he could operate on his own and sus it out. There were some rules he had to follow before he even became a member, and he would have to do so after as well. Number one, don’t steal from the Guild or its members; two, don’t kill anyone while on the job; three, don’t steal from the poor.

All perfectly within reason, which is why Edllarno understood why some thieves struggled with it. The Guild considered thievery a trade, a job, a hat that could be put on and taken off -- Riana taught her foxes the same. But, in school, Edllarno had learned that on Nirn oftentimes thievery was the only way people could keep living -- a last resort, where success was existential. Whether the Guild did anything about that, he would find out.

But he would need to find it first. And that took time. And, likely, it took the ability to read the local language.

Saluk had made it clear he would come and go as he wished, so Edllarno went to Stands-In-Wonder to learn ta’agra faster. He found the lizard-folk at breakfast, their plate heavy with a drumstick bigger than Edllarno’s hand and an ostrich egg -- while Edllarno had a much more sensible plate of egg fried rice and braised rodentia. No judgement was vocalized between the two as they sat down to eat together.

Llorona’s house had a dining room where the guests, minders, and early morning students all ate together. It seemed larger inside than it should have been given the size of the house -- magic must have been involved.

While Edllarno finished his braised rodentia, Stands-In-Wonder took the ostrich egg into their jaws and turned their head vertical so that he could have gravity help him swallow it whole. It seemed rude to disturb him while their throat was distended, so Edllarno waited until the egg bulge had passed before he brought up the topic.

“Are there classes I could take to accelerate learning ta’agra?”

“Yes,” the Saxhleel gurgled out. Edllarno had guessed wrongly that they were done swallowing the egg. “Language and writing classes, some magic classes which focus on illusion and mysticism. Which would you like to do?” As they talked, Stands-In-Wonder’s voice became less strained, perhaps the speech helped them swallow the massive egg. After they had finished, they dabbed at their mouth with a hankie, to clean off drool.

Edllarno stirred his rodentia into the rice as he contemplated. “I have talent with magic already -- illusion has been an interest of mine. For… obvious reasons.” The fox-folk coughed.

“There is no shame in that. Once immigration has come by, and placed you with a family, we can sign you up at no cost.” The lizard-folk’s face was unreadable, as always.

“...Placed me with a family?” Edllarno’s ears swept back and low. “I’m a grown man.”

Stands-In-Wonder was silent for a while as they opened their mouth wide again to swallow the drumstick whole, including the bone, without chewing. “By the reckoning of the Daedra.” Once more the lizard-folk’s voice was strained. “But by the reckoning of the Khajiit, you are half a decade off.”

“I’m eighteen!” Edllarno’s tail puffed up, incensed at this.

“Yes. You are able to learn a trade and earn money that is yours alone, and to marry. But you won’t be considered ‘full grown’ until you’re twenty-three in the reckoning of Elsweyr.” They worked their jaw, then reached into their mouth to pick at something stuck in their needle-like teeth. “Llorona’s house is open to all, if you find that the family they place you with is unfit. We, more than any foreign religion, have the position to call out immigration’s failures if it happens.”

The fox’s left ear popped up. “Foreign?”

Stands-In-Wonder nodded. “Correct. Llorona is an ancestor spirit of the Rhojiit people, native to Skyrim and High Rock. The Khajiiti Moon Bishops allow us to worship and offer succor to a greater degree than any other non-Khajiiti or Ka Po’ Tun religion.” The lizard-folk patted Edllarno’s hand. “What I’m trying to say is that if it doesn’t work out, you can come here. Llorona has room in her house for you always.”

Edllarno’s ear snapped back. “I don’t have a way out of this, do I?”

“Not really. But it need not be terrible -- you will live with your people again. Finally the food will be spiced appropriately.”

“I apologized to Cookie about that,” Edllarno defended himself as his ears turned pink.

“And Cookie forgave you. But she hasn’t forgotten it.”

\--

Immigration would not open for a number of weeks -- apparently the Moon Empire was at war, and the Emperor had ordered a vacation for all civil service workers during a period of relative peace. The vacation did not happen all at once, each region of the Empire would have their turn. They would rotate which service took their vacation when, and it would pass on to their neighboring province when it concluded. It was unfortunate timing that meant Edllarno couldn’t pursue magical study just yet.

Naturally, as a thief, he had no intention of honoring such a stupid set of circumstances.

“Hmm,” Saluk said as they ventured off into Old Town and then the chardocks a second time. The Skittle Run would happen soon, and then it would be a thief’s holiday. So many valuable resources in a slippery environment where they could get lost. “I’m afraid I can’t help you with this.”

Edllarno’s ears perked up then swiveled backward. “And why’s that? Afraid I’ll bewitch you?”

“Well, I wasn’t but now I’m a little concerned.” Saluk walked with his hands interlocked behind his head. “But I can’t tell you why. It counts as giving a hint.”

The fox-folk narrowed his eyes at the Redguard’s back. Telling him why he couldn’t help him steal a magic book -- why would that count as a hint? Edllarno ruminated on it for a second before he came to two possibilities: either the arcanist shop in the Lodge was the Guild’s hideout, or it was owned by a Guild member.

Or Saluk was pulling his tail.

Saluk suddenly yanked on Edllarno’s tail. “This way, bright-eye.” The Redguard had changed directions from the main entrance of the chardocks to a smaller entrance closer to the old south docks, which had been refitted into the beach Edllarno arrived at.

The fox-folk hugged his poor tail to himself and patted down the fur from where it had bristled out. “It’s okay, I’ll brush you when we get home.” Still he followed.

“Careful to do it where Sherike can’t spy on you.” Saluk stopped him all of a sudden and bade the fox-folk to duck into the shadows. “Look over there, you see that?”

Edllarno peaked around a box at the docks to see what there was to see. Several Khajiiti dock workers were loading boxes onto a carriage -- one which curiously lacked horses. Perhaps they were to be brought in later. The boxes were all nondescript, but mixed among them were red and green leather trunks, and clasped cases. The fox-folk ducked back with cocked ears. “Luggage?”

“Someone is hoping to get into Alabaster without much notice. Probably a wealthy someone.” The Redguard peaked and looked around. “I don’t see any guards, so whoever this is -- they’re either not important enough to actually be worth noticing, or they know we’re here because they’re using Wag’ Ne guards.”

A knife with a diamond-shaped blade and a hollow ring pommel promptly dug itself into the wall next to him, answering the question and causing the Redguard to back up.

“Wag’ Ne,” he whispered and cursed. “Back away slowly, they gave us a warning, let’s show respect.”

Edllarno found himself instinctively following where the knife had been thrown, and saw a small cat-person dressed in dark colors who stood in the shadows behind the carriage. Despite the distance he found he could see them clearly -- like they were inches away. He could see black stripes on orange and white fur, he could see round pupils -- which Khajiit didn’t have -- in golden eyes with little white to them. He pried the knife out of the wall, with some difficulty, and backed up as Saluk had done.

“What took you?” Saluk hissed, when Edllarno had joined up with him at last.

“I saw the one who threw this,” he replied and held up the knife. “Like a Khajiit child, dressed in dark pajamas….”

“Must have been a rookie, to be seen by someone.” The Redguard scratched his head. “Shit… and I wanted to see if there was any new apple brandy from the Rim we could swipe. Still -- you got to see a Ka Po’ Tun, that must have been interesting for a newcomer.”

“Do they usually use children for their stealth guards?” Edllarno examined the knife. It was covered in small scratches, and there was evidence of it being worn down on the handle due to how faded the fabric wrap was.

“Ka Po’ Tun are just that size.” Saluk shrugged. “They’re roughly the same height as the tojay. Don’t let their size fool you -- they’re mean when they want to be.” He narrowed his eyes and pointed. “Adorable. And mean.”

“You’re speaking from experience, aren’t you.” Edllarno accused him.

“I _thought_ she was a large plush, and now I have scars in unfortunate places.” He crossed his arms and scowled. When Edllarno’s gaze drifted downward, he fully turned away. “C’mon, let’s go find something else to do. Can’t get onto the docks, even if the Run happens today anyhow.”

\--

As a tailor apprentice, Edllarno was asked to do a lot of gofer work. ‘Deliver this order,’ ‘go get this fabric from this merchant’, and ‘fetch me my blessed bean juice before I commit murder’. Stuff like that. The bean juice wasn’t actually all that bad if it was diluted with milk, sugar, and syrup to the point it barely resembled bean juice. Ultimately, the effect was that Edllarno was not making clothes for customers -- but he was learning all the same. Like casing a target, he learned little tidbits about the people who lived in the Lodge. Lilmothiit were indeed the majority population, but out of the four ethnic groups it was Seth’s marbled white and black foxes who were the majority. Their tastes were eccentric -- he once delivered a lined with horkerfur to one such madfox only to find it was meant for their scarecrow, for their corn fields outside the city.

“Seriously,” Edllarno said to his coworkers after he’d returned from the delivery. “All that… for a scarecrow.”

“This one knows,sweetie,” Dulcia, the receptionist for the tailor shop, replied and sipped her bean juice. She was a Ohmes Khajiit, strongly resembling a Bosmer but with a tail and slit pupil eyes to denote her origins. She took the receipt Edllarno offered and placed it among the others for the day, then handed him a ticket for a new order. “Khajiit will give you an easy task to cool down from such grain-related excess, yes? She sends you to pick up a roll of burnout velvet for the shop.” From the desk, she handed him a roll of parchment and a note with an address. “Hurry back, and maybe you can help Antwain with the afternoon appointment.”

The prospect of helping with some tailoring was pretty nice, so Edllarno grabbed the order and address and booked it. A proper pair of boots helped with booking it, courtesy of a nobleman in Old Town after the chardocks were negated as an option for an afternoon.

While he walked around the Lodge, hooded and cloaked despite the tropical heat, he kept an eye out for an arcanist. On the way back from the merchant his ears picked up a faint whistle, and his nose picked up a smell that put his fur on end. Ozone -- only produced by lightning magic. He followed the smell down an unfamiliar street, went down a flight of stairs to a lower street level and saw something odd. A bridge across a dried out riverbed which had become overgrown with jungle foliage. If he hadn’t known something was amiss down there, he wouldn’t have thought to look close and see.

A hooded robed figure, blue with gold trim, stood over a marble Lilmothiit -- a harlot, given he was dressed in silks and organza -- with a glowing spear of lightning in their hand. Strangely, no sound came from the scene -- even as the Lilmothiit tried to scoot away, and had his tail stomped on. Edllarno got a bit closer to the scene, and felt his fur go on end as he passed through a magical field of some kind. As he did, the sound returned -- he could hear the harlot’s whining, and could better see the hand which held the lightning spell -- a yellow-gold skintone, indicative of an Altmer.

“Perhaps, as a ghost, you should warn your fellows not to meddle in the affairs of the Synod.” The Elf growled and pointed with his spear. “Frankly, a lightning stake seems too good for the likes of you.”

Edllarno was about to witness a murder. A murder by a member of the Synod -- the thought of which filled him with incredulity, but he didn’t know why. The Lilmothiit harlot caught his eye and looked at him plaintively.

‘What do you expect me to do?’ Edllarno communicated in his head, and with facial expressions. He thought quickly, and felt around for anything he could use. He had his blessing dagger, he wouldn’t get close enough in time. He could use the crystal shard spell, but that would hit the harlot. He had the knife the Ka Po’ Tun had thrown as a warning -- ah.

That would do nicely.

Edllarno crept down, silent as the grave, and got into a spot of deep shade behind one of the bridge’s supports. A quick glance to line up the shot, and he threw the Wag’ Ne knife. The diamond-shaped blade caught the Elf on his cheek as it passed, and dug itself into a tree trunk deeply. Edllarno knew he hadn’t thrown it that hard, so it had to have some design element to dig that deep.

The Synod Elf stumbled off the Lilmothiit’s tail, which allowed the harlot to scoot away. His hands alight with fire and lightning, the would-be murderer looked around in every direction, afraid. Edllarno could smell blood in the air.

“Why do you interfere?” He shouted. “This is our affair -- we let you wage your war, you stay out of our business! That was the arrangement!” Naturally, no reply came. The Elf jumped at every sound for a minute, he turned sharply to brandish his spells all the while Edllarno could tell he was growing more and more afraid. “F-fine! I’ll go. But your master will hear from Councilor Mozenrath about this! And you,“ he hissed at the marble fox, “watch your back. The Wag’ Ne won’t be able to save you next time!”

The Synod Elf backed away, until he suddenly turned and ran.

Edllarno remained hidden for a moment longer before he peaked out. The harlot was fixing his tail, brushing the part that had been stomped on. When he glanced at the tree he’d thrown the Akaviri knife into, he saw only a gouge where it had been. The grey fox dashed over to the marble fox and looked him over. While the harlot pontificated his thanks, Edllarno did a double-take as he got to look at his face without adrenalin in the way. “Hold on… I remember you -- you were one of the harlots in the alley Saluk took me through.”

The marble fox frowned, stood, and dusted his organza trousers off. “One,” he said with a distinct accent only the marble Lilmothiit had, “I am a _dancer_. I _dance_ , the ladies throw money at me, I do not sleep with any of them. Two,” he began to count off on his fingers, “I remember you too. I hoped Saluk would be nearby -- but you pulled that rescue off fine, thank you. Three, you keep that tone up and I won’t give you a hint.”

Edllarno’s ears cocked. “A hint?”

“Yes.” The marble fox nodded. “Saluk can’t give hints cause he invited you -- but everyone else can. Because you kept me from looking ugly for my funeral,” the Sethi Lilmothiit struck a dramatic pose, “I will give you a hint on where to find the Guild.” The barely-clothed fox spun around and baffed Edllarno with his fluffy tail. “Ricardichi’s hint is: Where you go to learn how to Whisper.”

“They have to teach Nirni people how to whisper?” Edllarno’s eyebrow arched dangerously.

“That was Ricardichi’s first thought too, but no.” Ricardichi wagged his finger. “Now… I have just come off a near-death experience. I’m going home, hugging my wife and my kits, and putting all this into a new dance!”

As the -- apparently -- Thieves Guild dancer left the would-be site of his murder, Edllarno numbly walked back toward the tailor shop. A normal person would contemplate the zone of silence around the event, or the fact that a murder had been attempted, or that _someone_ had swipped the Wag Ne’ knife. But Edllarno was busy thinking how a Lilmothiit dancer who dressed in organza trousers could keep a wife and raise kits. 

“Edllarno, what took you so long?” Dulcia asked when he returned to the shop. “Did you get lost?”

“No, some guy tried to rob me,” Edllarno lied as he handed her the roll of fabric. “Tried being the key word.”

“Ah, is good. That means we can send you to get the orders, and make the deliveries, in the bad neighborhoods.” Dulcia smiled, and took the roll to the back room.

Edllarno’s palms began to sweat just a little. “The bad neighborhoods?”

“Yes,” the answer came from behind the door. “Where the Elves and Men live.”

\--

While Edllarno was waiting his turn to take a bath that evening, he thought about the day’s events. He also made sure his hood was up so Sherike couldn’t sketch him for a portrait -- as no doubt his brooding expression would be too handsome to resist.

The line moved, and Edllarno moved with it for a few steps.

‘Where one goes to learn how to whisper,’ Edllarno mused to himself. ‘What could that mean? A speech school? Diplomacy?’ His eye stung for a moment so much that Edllarno rubbed it in the hope that he could get the irritant out without having to tear up. His new makeup was smudge resistant, not water-proof. Though, he supposed, it would all get removed soon anyway. ‘The Synod, why does the thought of them murdering someone seem so confusing?’

His right eye stung. Riana had said something about ‘last time’. And mimicking her nephew’s power. She implied he should have more memory than he did, particularly of her. Maybe the answer for that lay there.

The line moved, and Edllarno moved with it.

Gears ground in his head, and his eye wouldn’t stop stinging. He remembered suddenly that Riana had missed when Edllarno could connect the dots. Maybe that would be the way forward, visualize all the information.

The line moved, and Edllarno moved with it.

He put the bits and pieces of information together into dots in his head, and let them sit there while he connected them together. While he did, the line kept moving and Edllarno moved on auto-pilot. He had gotten into the tub for the final soak and rinse before something clicked in his head -- like a key had turned. All of a sudden his eye stopped stinging.

“The College of Whispers,” he muttered as gazed vacantly in the bathroom. His voice bounced along the pastel pink tiles, and echoed back at him. ‘The Synod and the College of Whispers were always at each other’s throats,’ he remembered as if it was something he’d always known. ‘The Arcane University came under the College’s authority, and they made it into a nest of vipers for people outside their club.’ His mind blanked as he connected that to Saluk’s comment about a ‘gentleman’s club’, and to Richardichi’s hint. “The College of Whispers.”

With that bit of information, Edllarno next asked around Llorona’s house about the College having a campus or regional office in Alabaster. As it so happened, it did. With his hair wrapped up in a towel, and wearing a fluffy pink robe, Edllarno returned to his room confident he’d figured it out. He found an envelope on his bed, with a note inside written in calligraphy.

“Yarny boy! Good to see you up and about again. Still ever so slightly murderously angry about what happened to my boy on your watch, but hey. Bygones, and trygones, and quadragones and all that. Lost my train of thought. Wait, trains don’t exist yet anyway. Or maybe they never will? So many possibilities, so few chances to change anything. What was I saying? Something something, implied death threat, aha! You can leave what happened in the past in the past, and go on without me ever giving you grief again. Dredge it up, and I’ll have to settle some scores. It’s a father-in-law thing, you should understand.

\-- With Love, Seth.”

“Sherike,” Edllarno asked without looking up from the note as his blood ran cold, “what’s the legal age to stress drink wine?”

“Twenty-two,” the artist said from outside Edllarno’s door.

“Damn.”

\---

For the record, Tiburón wasn't much of a drinker. Eddy got that trait from his mamá this time around.


	5. Run, Skittle, Run

You, bone of the earth, are plucked from the side of [REDACTED] to serve as the eyes and ears of the GODS.

\--

**Chapter Five: Run, Skittle, Run**

Edllarno was woken up by being shaken. Instantly his lips were pulled back and he prepped a barrage of crystal shards from his hand.

Saluk grabbed him by the wrist and pushed the spellcasting hand away. “Ssh,” he hissed. “The Skittle Run is going to start soon. C’mon, we need to get to the chardocks.” The Redguard stepped away from the Lilmothiit’s bed and threw some clothes at him. “Get dressed, and let’s go.”

“How can you tell it’s going to start?” Edllarno whispered as he put his binder on first.

“Sailors came back at last call saying all the whales have left -- whales and skittles hate each other, so if they’re leaving, it’s cause skittles are coming in.” Saluk shifted on his feet, eager to be on the move. “ _Come on_ , here -- I’ll help.”

“Back off,” the fox-folk snarled as he tied his hair with a ribbon. “I’m almost done.”

“I’ve seen you out and about, you’re going to take forever to get your eyes lined properly.”

Edllarno pulled on his eyelid and started applying the liner, just as Saluk had proposed. “I’ve been doing this for years, I know how to get it done fast.”

Saluk would hear none of it, and kept trying to grab the eyeliner pen from Edllarno. “And if you do it fast, you’ll stop eighteen times on the way there to touch it up -- because you didn’t do it _right_.”

“Bold of you to assume,” Edllarno swatted Saluk’s hand away with his claws, “that I -- someone with more younger siblings and cousins than you have digits -- don’t know how to do it right in literal seconds.” Finished, Edllarno put the eyeliner pen away and showed his work to the Redguard.

“Okay, fine, whatever, let’s go.”

When they got outside, Edllarno realized it wasn’t daytime. He’d never been out of the house any time it was nighttime -- Riana’s domain -- and his cellar room had no windows. The city was blessedly dark, quiet, and haunting. For a moment, it reminded him of the Shade. And when he looked up -- the countless pinpoints of light, the stars. And the moons! The larger of the two was full, tinged red, beautiful, while the smaller moon was ghostly white and waxing gibbous. All that was missing was the comet, Edllarno mused. But then he stopped to think -- what comet?

He put his hood down outside for the first time since he’d arrived on Nirn, and didn’t need to struggle to see. “In Oblivion there is a room dedicated to mimicking this,” he told Saluk as they walked. “But it’s much better in person.”

“I’ll make sure to take you on more night heists if you ever find the Guild,” Saluk responded, quickness in his steps. “Now, you know the rules? No killing, no stealing from the poor, no stealing from the Guild -- basic stuff, yeah?”

“Of course,” Edllarno commented. The Dogate had a sparkling effect on the statues, like they had stars in their eyes. He began to notice a lot of effects like that, as they entered Old Town. There was also more people on the street.

“Well, we don’t steal from poor people at the Run, but we do steal from the merchants and the rich folk who try to bully their way into getting the most out of the Run -- especially Elves.” Saluk’s tone became acidic when he spoke of the Elves. “This is going to be done in shifts, and we’re the first ones. We pickpocket scalpers and bullies, or rather you will.” He gestured at Edllarno as they ducked into an alley. “I’ll be focusing on making everyone trying to charge for access to the Run has a _horrible, awful, no-good day_. Might nick their breeches, if they’re being pushy about it.”

“Aww!” Edllarno whined, only half-joking. “I want to give gatekeepers a lousy time too!”

“Maybe on the next Run.” Saluk began to count off on his fingers. “Senchal’s probably going to have a Run in four years, with Ma’Corin in twelve. Mistral had theirs last year. Alabaster’s next run will probably be twenty-five years from now.”

The fox-folk’s ears drooped. “So long between them?”

“Well yes, Skittle Runs only happen when the local marine skittles can’t work anymore because they’re so overburdened. And that’s why the Guild wants us doing this -- too easy for rich people to lock it off and make the Run only something they can enjoy.”

“...what are the skittles working _on_?”

“Ssh, we’re here.” Saluk had led them to the wall of the chardocks, and quickly put his back to it and cupped his hands. “Alright, get up and over.” When Edllarno put his foot in the cupped hands, Saluk hauled him up. “I’ll check in on you every couple of hours, but this is a test to see how you do on your own.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Edllarno replied before he hopped over the wall. Stone spikes weren’t really much of a deterrent when they were worn down to the loss of their points. He hit the ground, and dashed off into the warehouses. He spent an hour watching the guards, keeping track of their routes and waiting for a shift to happen -- the clock built into the main gate helped track time.

People started to show up to the chardocks as the sun got closer to rising. As the sky lightened, Edllarno noted how the fish in the harbor had all vanished. In their place, he began to notice shrimp-like creatures flitting about in the water, all pastel yellow with soft red markings. They ate at the algae and barnacles which had grown on the piers, and every time Edllarno glanced at them there was less of the sea life clinging to the docks.

With a crate in hand, like he was one of the dock workers, he moseyed up to one of the guards. “Sir?” He asked the cathay Khajiit, and played up his accent. “Those little things in the water? They are skittles?”

“Yes,” the guard sighed. His uniform was dark blue with copper frogging across the chest, and a red sash. Peculiarly, he had a type of spear in hand that had a flared base, like it was made to brace against the shoulder, and a point underneath a hollow tube. “They’re the small ones, they clean. And yes, if your shoes or shirt, or whatever needs cleaning, you dip it in the water, and they fix it for you. Khajiit doesn’t care, but the supervisor might. Go on break first.”

“Thank you, sir,” Edllarno huffed and puffed under the imagined weight of the empty crate. He set it down with a pile and walked off before the guard realized he was way too skinny to be a dock worker.

The chardocks were still closed to non-workers, but things changed when he began to feel tremors every so often. Something big was walking, and it shook the earth with its steps. That, or an earthquake was due to happen. The gates to the chardocks opened all of a sudden, and people began to swarm in. Naturally, the rich were the first through as they had guards with clubs to make sure the peasantry stayed back. However, Edllarno noticed, some were visibly uneasy. One poor sea elf lacked his compatriots uniform breeches, and had a long coat on instead -- he didn’t seem happy with that. Saluk had been hard at work.

Edllarno joined the crowd as they passed the gates and spread out along the piers of the chardocks. He looked across the harbor before the sky -- terrifying as it became a purple-blue abyss -- brightened. Folks had also gathered on the beach at the south docks.

As if a cruel joke, the first skittle of the Run which Edllarno saw was another lobster-like one. Half-the size of a nord, with a pastel violet carapace with jagged blue patterns at the joints, and massive claws bigger than Edllarno’s waist was wide. Unlike the first one he had seen, the new skittle was covered in barnacles, some coral shells had started to grow around its face, and oysters ranging in size from castanets to dinner plates adhered to its back.

Immediately people went to work cleaning the lobster-like creature even as other pastel arthropods emerged from the sea. Some resembled scorpions with massive flippers on their flanks, there were at least a dozen crab-like variants, and creatures with dome-like shells and long tails that dragged behind them. The largest skittles, and the ones which were responsible for the impact tremors, didn’t look like marine animals at all. They resembled giant spiders, comparable in size to the chardocks gate, with pastel orange, yellow, and blue colorations. Instead of spider eyes, they had humanoid figures which were covered in chitinous armor with compound eyes taking up most of their 'head' and human-like mouths below them -- yet the structures for the mouth and fangs of a spider remained on the main body. All of these pastel arthropods were covered in oceanic detritus which needed to be cleaned off, and people eager to do so in the hopes of a reward.

Edllarno didn’t have much time to gawk, he had to get to work. Many times he had to lift precious red coral or pearls from the purse of a merchant who hounded their gangs of employees to work faster. Many more times, he arranged for them to trip and drop their plunder for desperate peasants to grab and scurry away with.

However, what he hadn’t anticipated was seeing some of the tiny tigers in pajamas roaming around. After a bit of searching, he found out why. There was what was obviously a Ka Po’ Tun nobleman. It was obvious because he was next to a palanquin with six metallic insect legs instead of bearers. Dressed in foreign fashions the fox-folk didn’t quite understand, such as the finial of pearls atop his velvet cap, the nobleman nonetheless kneeled on the dock far away from other participants -- he had a pile of oysters in front of him that he would force open in search of pearls. The pile kept getting replenished by the pajama-clad guards. What forced Edllarno’s intervention was when he saw the guards -- Wag’ Ne, he remembered they were called -- steal the oysters from poor people who removed them from a skittle’s carapace.

People acted like they couldn’t see the Wag’ Ne, even though they weren’t being particularly stealthy about their actions. Or maybe it was magic, as he saw a Khajiit look directly at a Wag’ Ne and not notice. Anyway, something had to be done.

“Pardon,” Edllarno said as he approached the Ka Po’ Tun nobleman without preamble. The fox-folk bowed as the small tiger glanced at him. “Your guards are stealing from poorer participants in the Run. Could you kindly tell them to stop?”

People at the edges of the wide berth the nobleman had been given looked on in fear as the little tiger put his oyster and his knife down. He folded his hands into the wide sleeves of his coat and somehow managed to look down his nose at Edllarno despite being a few feet shorter. “You accuse my guards of stealing?” The tiger’s common was accented but easily understood.

“I do. And it’s my job to make sure the rules are followed.” Edllarno turned to look dead on at a Wag’ Ne which peaked out around the edge of the palanquin with a knife drawn. “Rules they’re breaking.”

The nobleman glanced from the Wag’ Ne to Edllarno, and his tail began to twitch as it coiled around his knees. “I… was not aware there were rules to follow for this event.”

“Stealing is fine, but you steal from merchants or other wealthy individuals. Leave the peasants the scraps they can find.”

It was faint, but Edllarno’s large ears picked up the telltale ‘shink’ of claws being unsheathed. “They have been stealing from peasants, have they?” The Ka Po’ Tun turned to fully look at the Wag’ Ne and sharply tilted his head back before he focused on Edllarno again. “I will see that they abide by these rules.”

“Excellent. Enjoy the Run, your lordship.” Edllarno held eye-contact with the Wag’ Ne by the nobleman’s palanquin as he returned to the crowd, which seemed to unsettle the stealth guard. The more he looked at the tiger-folk, though, the more he noticed he could see them easier with his right eye than his left. He winked at the stealth guard before he vanished into the crowd.

\--

The Run was still ongoing by the time Edllarno and Saluk’s shift ended. He only knew their shift had ended when Saluk power walked up to him with two semi-familiar people departing him to go into the crowd. Edllarno led him into the shadow of one of the airship hangars -- as he’d found out they were named -- and let Saluk go at him.

“What did you do?” Saluk started it off with. “Don’t give me that innocent look, _what did you do?_ ”

“Okay, before I explain, tell me what you heard so I can lie convincingly.” For the first time since he got to Nirn, Edllarno felt like his old sassy self. It was like he had finally hit his stride, considering he knew the next steps to take.

Saluk pointed at him, his face tense, but said nothing. After a moment, he lowered his finger and sighed. “Damnit, that was a good line. I’ll have to use that sometime.” Saluk pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “You spoke directly to a Ka Po’ Tun noble, and threatened him into leaving the poor people alone. You didn’t speak at all, you straight up threatened him with magic. You attempted to seduce him with your roguish good looks. All these and more. So, as the one who caused this rumor mill to start up, _what did you do_?”

“Well, I figured out I can see the Wag’ Ne when they’re doing whatever stealth trick they do to get around,” Edllarno mentioned offhand, and ignored how Saluk visibly paled. “So I figured, if I confront them they’ll just knife me and get on with their lives. But if I confront their boss, and make it seem like this is an official warning or something, they’ll back off.”

Saluk looked high and low for a second before he asked, out of the corner of his mouth, “are any of them here?”

“Nope. They all left when he did.” Edllarno looked over the crowd, and saw a lobster skittle the size of an airship become covered by people eager to clean it. “Did anyone get rich today?”

Saluk sighed and crossed his arms. “Two lucky souls found red pearls today, and are able to get their families out of poverty -- at least for a while.” He shrugged. “Poor people aren’t exactly good at staying rich, but we can hope. New money types are always good covers for getting at old money types. But the real winners tonight will be the daedra worshippers.”

“Oh?” Edllarno’s mind whirled as he considered which Daedra would be involved.

“Mhm. There’s a cult dedicated to the Daedric Prince of Second Chances -- Orchendor -- that bless pearls with good fortune. It’s why so many people want a pearl -- even the blister pearls which aren’t worth much.” Saluk looked out on the crowd, distant. His voice lowered, to an almost wistful tone. “Most people would give anything for what they perceive as a second chance at something. So they bring their pearls to the cultists, and zap, a do-over.”

Edllarno leaned over into Saluk’s personal space. “Are you having a flashback moment in your head?”

“Yes.”

“Is there sad music playing in the background?”

“Yes.”

“That’s precious.”

“Eat me,” Saluk snapped.

“I would, but you’re too big to swallow all at once.” Edllarno reveled in being back to his old self, and scooted away before Saluk could grab at him. “But, I’ve never heard of a Daedric Prince of Second Chances.” The fox-folk scratched at the side of his head. “But the name Orchendor rings a bell. I think I saw him naked, once.”

Saluk was about to say something but he stopped, and considered the situation. “I don’t know much about daedra, but seeing a Daedric Prince naked might have the side effect of being able to see the terrifying stealth assassins of the Ka Po’ Tun.” He shrugged. “So, what was Orchendor like naked?”

Edllarno shook his head and went with the general impression of memories that bubbled up while his right eye stung. “So skinny. He looked like he’d only ever heard of food -- borderline starved. He had literal mange, because of something Peryite did.”

“Mange?”

“Yeah, he’s a Khajiit -- tojay, specifically.”

Saluk made a face. “Um. Most people describe him as looking like a Bosmer… but daedra can be shapeshifters. When did you see him?”

“I don’t remember, I just remember having to give him a flea bath, and Meridia being _pissed_.”

Saluk nodded. “Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, I _know_ you’re bullshitting me but I can’t prove it. You’re definitely going to be one of our face folks if you can find the Guild.” He snapped his fingers and pointed. “Still. Don’t confront nobles directly like that. It tends to end with you in a pillory, and _as much fun_ as a pillory is, I’d rather not have to break you out with your own lockpicks.”

“I will be getting those back, you know.” Edllarno narrowed his eyes at Saluk.

“I’m so sure.”

\--

A quick stop at Llorona’s house to hide his cut of the pilfered goods, and Edllarno left for work. He was going to crash when he got back to the house, but until then he could gloat internally. He'd gotten some spooks in trouble with their boss, by rightly guessing his disdain for poor people would win out over his unity with his servants. That's how everyone had been back in Cheydinhal.

That got Edllarno to pause as he was stitching up holes in a blacksmith's boots. His ears cocked as he asked himself out loud, "when was I in Cheydinhal?" How did he even know what Cheydinhal was? And why did he feel like he could look at any map and point it out? "Must be some part of Riana's riddlespeak."

Yet even as he worked needle and thread through a thick sole, familiar feelings and smells came to him. An Orc woman's bone-rattling laughter, a familiar weight against his back that shifted to soothe a cub woken from her nap.

He didn't realize how invested he was in the foreign memory until he pricked a fingerpad on the needle and snapped himself free of it.

Compared to the warmth in that memory, even the tropical Elsweyr heat was cold.

\---

He's starting to piece it together!


	6. Weathered Whispers

It started as a front, a shell company, a mask that they could use to survive a changing Era as established guilds and groups struggled to maintain their old ways. Eventually, the positions reversed, and the puppet became the puppetmaster.  
\---  
 **Chapter Six: Weathered Whispers**  
  
When Edllarno returned to Llorona’s house after work, the memory was all he could think about. That comforting weight pressed against his back, an Orc woman who could shake the roof with her Voice -- the capitalization was important, he knew -- and the sounds of cubs. Not kits -- cubs. He sat at his desk in his work clothes and pondered the meaning of this.  
  
Seth’s letter was still on his desk, from where he had placed it before bed. He knew the Foxgod of Madness and Music to speak to mortals more frequently than Riana -- though not as cordially as Suangen the Harlotmaster. But the things he’d said -- about being a father-in-law, and ‘his boy’, and the chummy attitude it was written with -- all confused Edllarno.  
  
“Sherike,” Edllarno asked his stalker, “I feel like I have another life’s worth of baggage I’m carrying around. Would you know anything about that?”  
  
A bloodshot eye appeared in the window of his door. “Hmm. Sounds sort of like what the Daedric Prince Orchendor offers to people. A new life to escape their baggage -- spiritual bankruptcy. All in line with his sphere of ‘second chances’.”  
  
“Sounds rather nice, for a Daedra,” Edllarno muttered as he imagined lime green fur on a borderline emaciated body.  
  
“Don’t let that trick you. A Daedra only ever cares for themself. You gotta stop and think, what does he get out of it?” The eye vanished for a moment and the sound of scratches on paper echoed through the hall. “What are you giving up for your second chance?”  
  
Edllarno sighed and rubbed his hand down his muzzle. “Are you upset because he turned you down?”  
  
The eye returned, more bloodshot. “I did not ask to be born unable to eat cheese, I deserve a do-over.”  
  
“I’m sorry for your situation,” Edllarno muttered and returned to focusing on the letter. He was presented with a false choice, and Seth had to know it. Dig deeper into the mysteries around the memories he had from some past life which seemed to draw him towards the Thieves Guild, and motivate a mad god to seek personal vengeance upon him. Or he leave well enough alone, and become a tailor and nothing more.  
  
He was obviously going the route which led to the Thieves Guild, because that was the _fun_ way to make money. Even if it meant he’d have to deal with Seth. The very idea of being a common tailor -- his papá would come back from the dead to slap the teeth out of his mouth for taking such a route. But Seth had to know Edllarno would go for the glory and riches of the Guild, even if it meant terrible consequences -- so why warn him at all?  
  
Sudden disgust with himself manifested, along with a stinging pain in his right eye -- he would need to see a doctor about that. But the disgust was more immediate. Being of two minds about a topic -- any topic -- made him want to throw up. “You know what you want to do,” he snarled at himself. “Own it and the consequences.”  
  
With that, he settled down for bed intent to head out in the morning for the College of Whispers, and the Guild.  
  
\--  
  
The College was in Old Town, past the Dogate and toward the direction of Northgate. Northgate was the access point between Old Town and Winter Town, where the Rhojiit and Nords lived, massively in favor of the beastfolk.  
  
Edllarno had to admit, Rhojiit were impressive to look at. Towering heights, mighty fangs, and three types of coat -- sandy brown, shaggy white, and sleek black white white rosettes. They lacked the Khajiit’s lengthy tails, but had far more muscle -- particularly in the pectoral, shoulder, and arm regions. Edllarno noticed this for purely aesthetic reasons. Truly.  
  
Old Town’s use of stone structures reminded Edllarno how far away from home he was. And it only worsened when he headed northward in Old Town -- for there the influences of Winter Town was felt. Buildings entirely of metal, gleaming and polished, in the Khajiiti style began to appear. Glass and steel was more on display the more northern he went. And that was what he found when he came to the campus of the College of Whispers.  
  
The entire side of the building which faced the main campus entrance was like a mirror. Panes of glass held together by thin frames of metal. From the center of the three-story building rose a tiered tower of similar sheets of glass separated by awnings and Khajiiti curved spikes.  
  
“For a place named for Whispering,” Edllarno commented as he hopped from handhold to foothold to scale the metal fence around the college, “this place sure is eye-catching.”  
  
Edllarno found a tree on the campus grounds to sit in and wait. As the sun rose, and he had to raise his hood, he noticed people begin to appear on the campus -- sometimes literally. Most were weighed down with books, or scraps of food as they moved from the main building to smaller ones elsewhere on the campus. So far nothing he saw indicated ‘Thieves Guild here, apply within’.  
  
A memory fluttered to his mind, a guild hidden behind a bar in the catacombs. He missed it as keenly as he missed home -- perhaps that had been his home in his past life. The symbol of the guild -- a diamond with a circle on the inside -- marked both entrances. He needed to find the marking to find the way into the guild.  
  
However there appeared to be a dress code at the College of Whispers. Leather boots up to the knee, trousers, a coat with a burst pattern originating from a triangle on the back, with shirt and headwear being up to the wearer. Edllarno fixed his lack of this dress code by way of ancient technique. He waited for a student to get too close to the tree, pulled them up into the tree and acquired a disguise. Sure, it left some poor Breton guy tied up in a tree in just his smallclothes, but it helped Edllarno get the freedom to look around in depth.  
  
At least the guy was bound up with silk ribbons -- so whoever found him would assume he had been doing something naughty and it backfired. In the Shade, such a thing would earn a man free alcohol from all his friends out of pity. Hopefully Elsweyr was similarly good natured about those things.  
  
Shadowmarks were placed in spots where normal people wouldn’t notice them. Out of the way places, corners, or disguised to look like graffiti. The memories came faster, with less stinging in his eye, and slipped into slots in his mind he didn’t know were empty. A couple of true students of the College noticed him and were confused -- likely because the trousers he had on didn’t come with a tail hole so he had to lower them in the back for tail access. Perhaps they took him for a harlot, exposing his fur thus.  
  
Once more, it was pure luck that he happened upon the shadowmark. He tripped over the too-long trousers of the student’s uniform and saw the shadowmark as he fell. It wasn’t carved, but created from perspective. Trees, paths, statues with spears held aloft, and the arcs of water from a fountain all came together to create the diamond around a circle representing the guild. At the middle of the circle was a gazebo with thick screens to keep out insects -- but also to permit privacy.  
  
Naturally, he made for the gazebo without delay. And naturally, he was stopped.  
  
A wall of ice sprung up and flipped Edllarno on his back. When he looked behind him, he saw a Breton woman dressed in a student’s uniform with smoked glasses. It didn’t take much to imagine her with her hair up, and dressed as a lifeguard to recognize her. “Oh, hi Geprier.”  
  
“Don’t you ‘hi Geprier’ me,” she snapped. Her eyebrow twitched behind her glasses. “What are you doing here? And why are you wearing someone’s uniform?”  
  
Edllarno quickly got to his feet and waved the overlong sleeves of his disguise. “What? Can’t you tell this is mine? I’m here to study magic to make myself taller, and thought this was the perfect way to have a visual marker of progress.”  
  
Geprier’s eyebrow twitched even more. “I don’t know what’s worse -- that you bullshit me to my face, or that I almost believed that if not for the fact that I can see your regular clothes on underneath.”  
  
Edllarno hung his head.  
  
Geprier sighed and removed her glasses. “Look, I get wanting to sneak in and try and apply. I know the age thing’s a big problem with Lilmothiit, but --”  
  
Edllarno cut her off as memories slotted into place about magic. Specifically aspects of Destruction magic that focused on the manipulation of fire -- the ratio of heat and light. He tucked his pinky and twisted his wrist to minimize heat and maximize light and pointed his hand at Geprier. “Flash!”  
  
A cone of blinding light extended from his hand and caught Geprier before she could put her smoked glasses back on. While the Breton doubled over in pain at the light in her eyes, Edllarno used his claws to scramble over the wall and dash for the gazebo again.  
  
“You are _so_ getting punched,” Geprier shouted through her pain.  
  
The fox-folk cleared the distance between him and the gazebo, and closed the screen door behind him as the ice block began to crumble. Within the gazebo were three stone benches each inscribed with a different aspect of the night sky, the big moon, the little moon, and a comet. A moment of searching had him find another Thieves Guild shadowmark carved into the leg of the comet bench. Memory told him that a chain had been near the back entrance of the Riften Thieves Guild, but he saw none.  
  
An angry shout from outside let him know Geprier knew where he’d gone, so he had to act fast. Beneath the bench he found a button built into the stone, and when he pressed it a section of the wooden floor behind it popped up. A tunnel, which he quickly slid into and closed the hatch behind him. As he climbed down the ladder attached to the tunnel, he could hear Geprier arrive at the gazebo and discover no foxes present. She found this displeasing, he imagined, if the sound of a slammed screen door were any indicator.  
  
Once he got to the bottom of the tunnel, he ditched the disguise and examined his surroundings. The architecture was clearly Khajiiti, the etchings in the walls were identical to the ones in Llorona’s cellar. He was in an octagonal room with pillars which roughly mapped out the gazebo’s borders above, and a single door. As Edllarno approached, he smelled many people, meat being cooked, and other signs of habitation. But he didn’t hear any movement or chatter.  
  
There were people there, who knew he was there.  
  
After a moment to sniff, he picked up two familiar scents -- Ricardichi and Saluk. He was in the right spot. But did they know it was him? Had Ricardichi gotten familiar with Edllarno’s smell, could marble foxes even smell as well as grey foxes?  
  
Edllarno opened the door and quickly had his hand up to cast his blinding spell again. “Flash!”  
  
There had been people on the other side of the door, some with weapons drawn and ready, who all found themselves on the receiving end of pure light in an otherwise dark room.  
  
“Khajiit’s eyes!” Shouted one who tumbled over a stack of books in her blinded state. “Khajiit’s tail!”  
  
“Fuck mothering -- Ed!” Saluk clutched at his eyes as he grit his teeth. “What is wrong with you?!”  
  
A man who resembled a large monkey with a tail twice as long as he was tall howled in pain. One of Vvarden Vey’s sandy swift foxes stumbled in her blindness and was trodden upon by the monkey man.  
  
“What,” an elderly Nord with a bandage covering his eyes asked as he tapped around the room with a wooden stick. “Did something happen? Are we under attack? Did someone spill the rum again?”  
  
While everyone was in disarray from the flash attack, Edllarno quickly took stock of the room. Stone with a low ceiling, rectangular with a kitchen-like setup in one corner with an induction rock instead of a firepit, a desk next to a heavy stone door, beds built into alcoves on the walls in between lighter wooden doors. Barrels and sacks were everywhere, and unlit torches were set into holders regularly.  
  
Edllarno didn’t have long to ponder as he was suddenly grabbed by the throat. An old Khajiit in leather armor with an excessive number of exterior pockets held the fox-folk firm and flicked her claws out as he began to struggle. “Hush,” the elderly leopard-patterned cat snarled while she looked him over. “Hmm. Matches the description.” She squeezed his neck to distract him while she rifled through his pockets. “And Saluk’s invitation card,” she announced as she produced the scrap of paper Saluk had provided him. “It’s the dull-claw alright.”  
  
The old catwoman tossed him away from the door, toward the other members of the Thieves Guild, who began to recover from being blinded. “No point doing the reveal this way,” Saluk muttered. “Get the lights back on.”  
  
As the torches relit themselves, Edllarno found himself surrounded by many thoroughly annoyed thieves. Meanwhile the blind Nord kept walking around in an attempt to find out where everyone was.  
  
“That spell will be useful,” the old catwoman muttered as she closed the door to the gazebo tunnel. “Useful for night escapes, though we need to see how it does in the daylight.”  
  
“Works just fine,” Edllarno replied as he stood and dusted himself off. He didn’t trouble himself with the glares aimed at him. “I used it to blind someone chasing me on the way here.”  
  
“Excellent.” The old Khajiit woman ambled toward the desk in the corner, and lit a cigar as she went. “Saluk, do the introductions.”  
  
As the Guild members broke apart to return to their activities, Saluk walked over to Edllarno and wagged his finger at the shorter man. “I’m going to get you for that,” he promised with a good natured tone, almost conversational. “I don’t know how yet, but I’ll pay you back for that.”  
  
“What’s wrong,” Edllarno asked with a tone of juvenile mockery, “can’t handle a little light?”  
  
Saluk wagged his finger again, a promise of vengeance between the two of them. “Alright, so I’ll do this quick since you’re starting off on a ‘no one likes him except the guy who invited him’ footing.” He turned and pointed at the monkey man who had gone to the kitchen. “Sun’yo, lockpicking expert. Also our alchemist since Miffle went blind.” He shifted his pointing over to the blind Nord. “Guess who that is.”  
  
“I can hear you,” Miffle shouted and shook his cane. “I’ll get my eyes back any day now!”  
  
“He’s been saying that for a year at this point.” The Redguard moved to point at the swift fox who had been stepped on. “That’s Noventa, she’s our pickpocketing expert. Don’t let her vicious bite fool you, she’s a sweetie.”  
  
Noventa feigned a pleasant facial expression and climbed into a bunk whereupon she asked Saluk how many fingers she was holding up.  
  
“You’ve met Ricardichi,” he added and pointed to the bunk next to Noventa’s. “Rare to see him here, but he and the missus are having a spat. I don’t know the details, don’t want to know them. He’s a generalist like me.”  
  
The marble fox snored in his sleep, his eyes hidden behind a beauty mask with rhinestone eyes on it.  
  
“The two Khajiit are the mother-daughter duo, guildmaster D’Zhasha, and Moshe our extortionist.” The Redguard threw his arm over Edllarno’s shoulder and recoiled from his attempt to pickpocket the fox-again when he found the fox’s dagger already drawn. “There are others out and about on their thievery. Such as Lo’wuizen, who you saw getting himself richer and is currently in the city jail.”  
  
Edllarno arched his brow.  
  
“Lo’wuizen has the spirit, but he is still young. Like you!” Saluk stuck his tongue out at the fox-folk. “So, you’ve found the Guild. You’re in. Now, go ask the guildmaster for a mark. I’m going to catch some of what Sun’yo is cooking.”  
  
While Saluk left him alone, Edllarno looked around. There was a strange feeling of displacement from being in the Alabaster Guild hideout. Things were similar to the Riften Guild, where his past life had been a thief, but markedly different. He missed how things had been, though he never lived it -- another him had.  
  
He approached the cigar-smoking Khajiit elder who glanced up at him with predatory eyes. “Saluk told me to come to you for a mark.”  
  
“He told you to ask,” D’Zhasha corrected. “There’s a slight difference in that one of those two sets of instructions requires _manners_.” She took a drag on her cigar as she waited, and met the fox-folk’s eyes. “D’Zhasha don’t have all day.”  
  
A power play his memories told him he’d endured from someone called Mercer before. Mercer had fallen for a trick, he wondered if D’Zhasha would as well. “Could you tell me what outstanding jobs the Guild has available?”  
  
“That’s better,” the elderly Khajiit said with a grunt. “Saluk tells this one you’re not on immigration’s books yet. So until you are, we’re only going to send you on jobs where no one will make a fuss about a fox walking about. No Moon Temples, no Synod infiltrations, no government offices.” She flipped through her papers, and smirked. “Aha, here. Something we can use to smooth over any ruffled feathers with the College.” The paper on top was offered to Edllarno, who took it.  
  
Upon examination, he balked. “You want me to go swimming?”  
  
“Diving,” D’Zhasha clarified. “You and Lo’wuizen, when he gets out of jail, will go diving in the sunken city while the skittles are still being cleaned. As long as you’re not afraid of whales or dreugh, you should be able to find something of ‘archaeological significance.’” She made air quotes toward the end. “Which we can ‘anonymously donate’ to the College.”  
  
“Slight problem with that,” Edllarno replied with narrowed eyes. “Saluk would tell you I don’t know how to swim.”  
  
“Well then, Khajiit hope you’re a fast learner.” D’Zhasa flicked some of her cigar ash away from them with a smug expression. “Maybe you’ll learn some manners along the way too! Wouldn’t that be a treat?”  
  
“...You know, considering the last guildmaster I worked with stabbed me in the neck,” Edllarno sighed, “I really can’t complain about this.”  
  
“The day is still young and you still haven’t any manners, so best not get your expectations too high.”  
  
\---  
  
I was originally going to make the Flash! spell something sandy like pocket sand, but then I saw that one iCarly clip, you know the one, and I knew what I had to do.


End file.
